Blood, Mud, and Armor: My 02 Adventure
by Ackbarfan5556
Summary: (Sequel to Sweat, Tears, and Evolutions) It's been two and a half years since the Chosen Children saved the world. But when an evil human called the Digimon Kaiser attempts to subjugate the Digital World, the Children are thrown back into action with a new group of children leading the charge. But is the Kaiser the true enemy? Or is there a darker force working from the shadows...
1. Prologue

In the immortal words of one Russell Casse…

Hello, boys! I'm back! *Cue massive explosion*

Not really that long of a hiatus, eh? Well, it's good to be working on this again.

Just to clarify, this 02 is gonna be a little different than the one we all know, but nothing too different. Point A and Point B will be mostly the same, but getting there is going to be a bit different, and I think you may like.

For those who are just joining, this is a sequel to my earlier story Sweat, Tears, and Evolutions. I would recommend reading that but you don't have to, though I would really appreciate it.

Finally, huge thanks to **MadDogLucario96** for doing some workshop with me and ironing out some details. You rock man. And thanks to the incredible JubiaMajo on DeviantArt for her work such as the cover picture.

One last thing, as usual... I don't own this show, I just play in it.

Well, that's about it, so let's put the pedal to the metal, drive like we're Sammy Hagar and get this show on the road!

* * *

 **Prologue**

 _'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!' – King Henry, Henry V_

 _Shinbashi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. Dec. 31st, 2016. 1002 Hours.  
P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

 _"My situation, never changes! Walking in and out of that door! Like a stranger, for the wages, I give you all, you say you want more! And all I could see was the end of the week. All the things we sign, and the things we buy, ain't gonna keep us together. Girl, it's just a matter of time!"_ My radio cranked out while me and Ren danced to the music as we were getting on the highway. One of the great things about being a parent is that you can indoctrinate your kid into liking the stuff you like. I'll make darn sure that boy will love the 80s and none of that crap that plays normally on the radio.

Anyways, where was I with my tale? Oh right. After we stopped that virus that Koushiro later named Diablomon, our lives mostly went back to normal. Now there was one more thing involving the Digimon shortly after my birthday in May of 2000, but it's not important to the story at this moment. By the start of 2002, the gang was still meeting up and hanging out everyone in a while, but we were all moving on to our own things. Taichi still had his soccer. Yamato was starting a band called the Teenage Wolves where he was the lead singer. Jou, who was now starting high school, was on his way to becoming a doctor. Sora was now taking up tennis like her mother. Koushiro was part of the school's computer club. Takeru and Hikari were both doing some school activities but they were still in elementary school while the rest of us excluding Jou were in junior high.

As for Mimi… well, there's a quick little story I'd like to tell, which we all call 'The Mimi Situation'. One day in late 2000, Mimi had inadvertently came across her father's resume which he had left on his computer. When she asked about it, her father explained that he wanted to move back to the States and that he was putting out his resume to employers. Now, Mimi would've been fine with this, though sad to leave and say goodbye to us, but her father let something slip that he wouldn't have told her until after they were settled in. See, Mimi never actually explained to her parents about the Digimon so her mother was so worried to live in Tokyo because she believed that all this stuff would happen again. I don't blame her; the Odaiba Fog Incident was pretty terrifying for those who weren't a Chosen Children. Anyways, Mimi gathered all of us and explained what was going on. Koushiro and I had to go to her house to tell her parents that this wasn't going to happen again and alleviate their fears. I guess it worked, as Mimi's folks never moved.

Of course, the world kept turning even while we were living out our pretty normal lives. Towards the end of 2000, the US Presidential Election came close to a tie, but Florida just barely called for Al Gore who narrowly defeated George W. Bush. Even with the Lewinsky Scandal, to which comedians like Whose Line were cracking a lot of jokes about, Gore and the Democrats managed to win, though that might have had something to do with Clinton winning both Korea and Vietnam.

There was also a moment when the United States nearly got struck with a catastrophe. On September 10th, 2001, a large conspiracy by the terrorist organization of Al-Qaeda to attack the World Trade Center in New York was exposed and stopped by the FBI before it could be carried out. The reason why it was discovered is that one of the perpetrators came forward and in exchange for immunity to prosecution, explained the plot. Why he panicked and went to the FBI goes back to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen back on the 12th of October in 2000. After Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility of the attack, Clinton declared that the perpetrators would face justice. In December, US Special Forces found Osama Bin Laden and other leaders of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and killed them in a large firefight. With the leadership of the terrorist organization removed, the will of the plotters of the WTC attack was greatly shaken which led to the eventual turncoat. The aftermath was truly a wakeup call considering how close the plotters got to succeeding. It brought about a bunch of changes in America like heightened airport security and expansion of security forces in the Federal Government.

Back home, things were going on like normal. We had made some new friends with some familiar faces. The first was a girl named Inoue Miyako, born on May 28th, 1990, who actually sent us a message during our fight with Diablomon. Nice girl with a fiery personality, she was in Koushiro's computer club and took a great liking to our computer genius. Funny enough, she never actually made the connecting between the Digimon fight over the internet and us, so she never asked Koushiro about the Digimon. Next was this young boy that was good friends with Miyako named Hida Iori. He was born on October 22nd, 1993 and was kinda of a quiet boy but somewhat makes sense considering that he lost his father at a young age. His father was a cop that had died preventing an assassination of a Japanese politician in London.

Finally, there was a boy that was completely enamored by Taichi. His name was Motomiya Daisuke and he was born on August 30th, 1991. They met in Taichi's soccer club during the sixth grade, when the third grade Daisuke was finally eligible to be on the team. This was also the same kid I found unconscious at Big Sight during Vamdemon's invasion, the one who disturbing looked like Taichi. Well, it turns out his personality was just as similar to Taichi's as well. Hot-headed, arrogant, basically Taichi before our adventures in the Digital World. The main problem I had with him was that he had a crush on Hikari, though he kept it to himself. Consider it me being a protective big brother and thinking that no guy was good for her, but that was my main problem with him. However, Taichi liked him, so I kept my animosity to myself. Still, little did any of us know what role those three kids would later play in 2002.

Even more so was that if you had told me that on my first day of the eighth grade that I'd be fighting a war, I would've laughed in your face…

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 7th, 2002. 2132 Hours._

 _"Ah, Captain Katarn. What a pleasure it is to finally meet you face-to face."  
"The pleasure's all yours, I'm sure."  
_ _"The Ors woman thinks quite highly of you, did you know that? She must have whimpered your name on at least seventeen different occasions over the last few days."  
_ _"Is that supposed to make me angry? I'm past that, Galak."  
_ _"Oh, really, Then what if I tell you that, even as we speak, Desann is descending on the Jedi Academy with thousands of his Force-enhanced, lightsaber-resistance warriors, eliminating the scourge of the Jedi for all time!"  
_ _"I'd say you're insane."  
_ _"Insane? Then what about this? Within hours, Desann will have eradicated those annoying Jedi, clearing the way for my accent as leader of the New Empire! I, Galak Fyyar the First, the genius who conceived of the Shadow Armor, will rule the galaxy with a cortosis fist; Worlds will tremble, stars will shudder-"  
_ _"Your shields will fall!"  
_ _"Raaaaaar!"_

"So, even in a galaxy, far, far away, bad guys will still uselessly monologue." Taichi joked.  
"Yeah, never do that with Kyle Katarn in the room." I snickered.  
"No doubt about that. Man, this game is great."  
"Hey, you boys probably need to start winding things down, you've got class in the morning." reminded Yuuko who came into the room which caused us both to groan.  
"Aw, come on, Mom!"  
"No, Taichi, I will not have my son start eighth grade by falling asleep in class." I tapped him on the shoulder.  
"Come on, let's just go with it." I told him. He reluctantly agreed and we both went to his room where we were going to be sleeping tonight.

As we walked into the room, we could see Hikari sitting Taichi's desk, looking out to the stars through the screen door and holding her Digivice.  
"Feeling sentimental?" Taichi asked. Hikari quickly looked at us before she put her Digivice on her desk.  
"Uh, yeah." She admitted.  
"Not a day goes by that I don't miss them." I informed.  
"I only wish we had gotten to spend more time with them."  
"Well, we didn't have a choice. You remember what Gennai said, we stayed, the Digital World would've seen us a threat and try to delete us." Taichi remembered.  
"Yeah, talk about being grateful." I muttered as I crawled onto the futon on the floor while they climbed into the double bunk bed which normally Taichi and I shared for the past few months but Hikari wanted to sleep with us for tonight. Drew, who was sitting in the corner, walked over to me when I patted the floor. Drew was slowly starting to get up there in age, but he was still going, as opposed to Miko, who sadly passed away a few months ago.  
"I hope I don't sound crazy, but I kinda miss our adventures." Hikari told us.  
"No, I know what you mean, Hikari. I feel like when we said goodbye, we had to say goodbye to something that made us unique." Taichi responded.  
"Look, we're all clearly tired, let's all get some sleep. We've all got class in the morning. Night." I said as I turned out the lights.  
"Night." "Good night." They aren't wrong though. I really do miss our adventures and being some sort of hero, even if I didn't feel like it. God help me, I missed it, and really wanted to do it again. I know crazy, right? I really would like something to happen again just to break the monotony of a normal life. But, you know what they say, 'Be careful what you wish for'.

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 0640 Hours._

"I swear, every time I put this jacket on, I feel like I've won the Masters." I joked as both Taichi and I were getting ready for class. Since going to Odaiba Middle School, we had to wear the standard school uniforms. They were a white buttoned long sleeve shirt with a green blazer jacket, grey pants, and white socks. At least we were allowed to choose our shoes, of which I had a pair of red and black sneakers, while Taichi had some white and blue sneakers.  
"Yeah, well, it's one more year of this before the dress code gets really strict in high school." Taichi reminded.  
"You know, if we were back in the States, we wouldn't have to deal with this. We'd get to wear what we want, to a reasonable sense of course." Taichi nodded.  
"Still can't believe we're starting another grade, where did the time go?"  
"It was so much simpler back then." I smiled.

"You guys ready yet?" Hikari said from the other side of the door before she opened it. Hikari today was starting the fifth grade but since she was still going to Odaiba Elementary, she didn't need to have a school uniform. She was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and a pair light red pants that matched her sneakers. She also had a digital camera hanging around her neck as a replacement to her whistle which she had left with Tailmon. Last, she had recently been experimenting with red hairclip in her hair which now pulled her bangs to the left.  
"Just a minute." Taichi explained as he finished tying up his sneakers.  
"You guys better hurry, don't you guys have to start class at 7:30?"  
"We do, meanwhile, you get an extra 15 minutes. Lucky." I said. Hikari chuckled.  
"Come on, Mom made us a big breakfast, and if you don't hurry, Drew might jump on the table and steal it." As soon as she said that, Taichi and I sprinted for the living room, as Drew had been known to do that.

"Bye, Mom!" "Bye, Yuuko-san!" The three of us shouted as we headed out the door after finishing breakfast and gathering our school supplies. We headed down the stairs and towards the street intersection where we were being waited by a familiar face.  
"Hey, Takeo." I waved as we walked up to him. He was wearing the same uniform as Taichi and myself and while the two of us still had the same hairstyle as we did three years ago, his had changed. His black hair had gone from short but messy to a now more clean style, somewhat similar to my own.  
"What kept ya?" He asked.  
"Big breakfast. We don't have to fight for our food as opposed to you and your three older brothers." I teased. He laughed.  
"Got that right, it's a mad house!" He claimed as we begun to cross the street. After walking a few blocks, we parted ways with Hikari who went off to Odaiba Elementary while the rest of us went on the middle school.

 _Odaiba Middle School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 0724 Hours._

"What was our homeroom number again?" Taichi asked as we were walking through the crowds of middle school students who were trying to get to their homerooms.  
"Ugh!" I got bumped into by a guy who was running fast. "Uh, E-13."  
"That's a floor up! Come on, we gotta hurry!" Takeo insisted.  
"Yeah, wouldn't look good on us to be late to our first class!" Taichi cried as we all ran for the stairs. We finally got to the room and on the teacher's desk was sheets of papers that signified what our class schedule were for us. I looked around the room and aside from some faces that I recognized throughout the years; the only real friendly face was Mimi's. Mimi's uniform was the same as all the other girls, a green and white sailor uniform with a blue neckerchief, white stockings and red shoes. Since she no longer had her hat, she was now wearing her hair out with a ponytail in the back tied up with a red bow. Both Taichi and Takeo took the two empty seats near the back which left me with a few options. Thankfully, there was an empty desk right next to Mimi and I took it. We both smiled at each other before the teacher walked in, preventing us from talking.

"Good morning." He began. "For some of you returning, welcome back. For those of you who are joining us, let me be the first to say 'Welcome to Odaiba Middle School'. I'll be your homeroom teacher for this school year. As I can see, you've all gathered your respective schedules so be sure to follow them…" He soon began to drone on before going to our first lesson. Once again, it seemed like it was just going to be yet another normal school year.

However, a few hours from now, was going to be anything but ordinary…

* * *

Ain't that the truth, huh?

Anyways, it's real good to be back and writing this once more. I'm going to enjoy this just as much as last time.

Don't worry about the next chapter. You get the gift of two today! See you on the next one.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	2. Courage Reborn!

As I said, you get the gift of two chapters in one day! And as you can plainly see from the title below, things are gonna be a bit different. And by the end, you'll have questions... but don't worry all will be revealed in time.

Anyways, let's get to the real action!

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Courage Reborn! Fladramon and KajiGreymon!**

 _Digital World. April 8th, 2002. 0738 Hours.  
P.O.V. – Third Person_

The clouds looked ominous as they darkened the sky over a forest not too far from the mountains in the Digital World. Under normal circumstances, most Digimon would be trying to find cover from the storm above them that was coming. However, the past month, getting caught in a storm was the least of their worries.  
"Run! It's the Digimon Kaiser!" A Digimon screamed out. Standing on a hill in front of a black obelisk structure was a young human male who had a sinister smile on his face. His hair was a mix of blue and light blue that was spiky and had on yellow sunglasses with purple lenses to hide his identity. His jumpsuit was blue, grey and white and he wore black boots, cuffs on his wrists and ankles. Finally, he had a large blue cape with yellow lining that looked similar to the wings of an insect and large golden-yellow shoulder pads. This was Digimon Kaiser and his goal was to dominate the Digital World.

The Kaiser chuckled at the fear he was spreading just by his sheer presence. He pulled out a black whip and swung it which was soon followed by black rings that flew from behind him. The rings were pure black and had strange wording on them. The Digimon knew exactly what these things were and were trying to flee as fast as they could. Digimon ranging from Gazimon, Gotsumon, even Unimon were trying to escape. However, the rings were much faster and opened before they closed around the necks and waists of their unfortunate victims. Once on, the lettering glowed red and the Digimon who fell slowly got back up, their eyes glowing red as well. The rings were slave collars that the Kaiser was using to brainwash and control the Digimon of the Digital World.

One Digimon that had unfortunately wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time was Hikari's partner Tailmon who was fleeing for her own life. One of the Kaiser's rings was fast approaching her but before it could seize her, her tail ring glowed bright and deflected it. Tailmon looked curiously at her ring as she was unaware that it could do that. Her confusion would be short lived as she would soon find a controlled Unimon walking towards her with the intent to harm. Unimon charged up his Holy Shot and fired at Tailmon.

 _Takaishi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 0722 Hours.  
P.O.V. - Takeru Takaishi_

I quickly checked the time on the clock and saw that I probably should be heading out for school. I placed my bowl of food in the sink and picked up my white bucket hat. Hard to believe that I'm living in Odiaba now. Mom's job as a reporter got her transferred to her paper's Odiaba offices which meant the Chosen Children were all living in the same neighborhood. No more taking the route to the district, I can walk to the other's houses. Dad and Yamato knew about the transfer, but I asked Yamato to keep it secret as I wanted to surprise the others. I gather my bag and got ready to head out to my new school which thankfully will have one familiar face in terms of Hikari.

"Hey, Mom? I'm heading out." I told her as I looked into her room that she used for her office.  
"I'm sorry I can't go with you on your first day of school, but… I have to finish this article today…"  
"It's okay, I can go by myself." I love her so much but she needs to realize I'm not a little kid who needs his hand held anymore. My adventures in the Digital World proved that. "I'm leaving!" I shouted as I closed the front door and walked towards the apartment's elevator. The elevator stopped right in front of me on the eight level and inside was two kids who looked like they went to elementary school as well. They were certainly ready for school I could see.

To my left was a girl with long lavender hair that was partially covered by a blue bandana and large round glasses that was over her brown eyes. She had a short pink shirt and a red long sleeve underneath that, purple shorts and red boots. Finally, she was carrying a fairly large red backpack. Beside her was a short brown haired boy with a bowl haircut and green eyes. He had a long-sleeved purple shirt, beige pants, and brown sneakers. He also had a black backpack that looked almost bigger than his entire torso.

"Good morning!" I greeted the both of them.  
"Good morning…" The girl replied.  
"I just moved into this building. I'm Takaishi Takeru, fifth grade. Nice to meet you."  
"I'm Inoue Miyako, sixth grade. It's written like the 'Kyo' in 'Kyoto', but pronounced 'Miyako'. Nice to meet you." Certainly a very chipper girl. "This is Iori."  
"I'm Hida Iori, third grade. Nice to meet you." The boy bowed.  
"Same to you." I said as I walked into the elevator.

We all walked together to school, though considering that I didn't know my new neighbors too well, I decided to keep a bit quiet while the two of them talked.  
"So, Miyako-san, can you come to my house after school to fix our computer?" asked Iori.  
"Sure." Miyako agreed. "Will your mom make ohagi?"  
"Sure, I'll e-mail her later."  
"Bingo!" She laughed as we turned into the school's courtyard. I suddenly stopped as I saw a bunch of kids playing soccer but what caused my sudden stop was a pair of goggles that shined with the sun. My eyes closed in on the kid and I saw Taichi out there on the field. Not the Taichi I saw a few weeks ago, but the Taichi I first met almost three years ago.

"Taichi-san?" I muttered to myself before I shook my head. I could see now that the boy was not Taichi but rather a burgundy haired, brown eyed boy with similar hair and goggles like Taichi. He had on a blue and white shirt, a blue sleeveless jacket, olive shorts and orange sneakers. In a way, the kid was like some sort of Taichi clone. One of the kids kicked the soccer ball and he deflected it which caused it to head my way which I jumped up and caught it before it could go out in the street.  
"Sorry, sorry!" The kid apologized as he dusted himself off the ground before walking to me. I stared at him for a moment which earned me a look from him. I then tossed the ball into his hands.  
"Those goggles are pretty cool." I told him. He really didn't have a response to that.  
"Oi, Daisuke! What are you doing?" One of the kids yelled at him and he returned back to the game.  
"Daisuke?" I said to myself. "Taichi-san is in middle school, of course…" I laughed at the idea that I could've mistaken him for Taichi.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

After we cleaned up our game, we all headed to our respective homerooms. I went to 5-A and just my luck, unpacking her things was an amazing girl I knew too well.  
"I'm in the same class as Hikari-chan again!" I silently cheered to myself. She may have heard my voice but not what I said as she turned around and flashed that pure smile of hers.  
"I'm glad to see you again." She said as we took our seats next to each other.  
"Just a few minutes ago, some guy said my goggles were cool. But I don't even know him…"  
"What did he look like?"  
"Eh, green shirt, khaki shorts, black sneakers. He was about our age with blue eyes, blonde hair and a white bucket hat."  
"Bucket hat?"  
"If you would, please sit down." The teacher requested as class was about to begin. I propped my head up with my arm as I took my seat. Yet another boring school year.

"I'd like to introduce you a new student for this semester. Come in." The door to the room opened and my eyes widened as in walked in that kid from earlier! "Takaishi Takeru."  
"I'm Takaishi Takeru. Nice to meet you all." He bowed.  
"Him…" I muttered.  
"Your seat is… next to Yagami." He walked over to sit right next to Hikari.  
"So this is the surprise you hinted." Hikari said which made my eyes widen even more.  
"Sounds like Onii-chan was able to keep the secret then." He smiled at her which really set me off! _'What's with this guy? How does he know Hikari-chan so well?'_

 _Digital World. April 8th, 2002. 1348 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A few hours later, the Chosen Children's partner Digimon were in dire straits. The Kaiser's reign of terror was making countless numbers of Digimon refugees who were fleeing their homes in order to avoid being enslaved by the vile human. Agumon, Guilmon and several of the others were trying to lead many of the displaced Digimon to a safer area when the Kaiser showed up and routed all of them. They all split up with a controlled Snimon chasing after Tentomon, Patamon and Piyomon. The Snimon used his Shadow Sickle attack that struck both Piyomon and Tentomon and caused them to crash into the bushes while Patamon took cover in a tree, hoping not to be found.  
"Piyomon, Tentomon…" He muttered in fear.

Agumon was running as fast as he could in order not to become the next in a long line of slaves for the Kaiser when he tripped on the ground.  
"Agumon!" Guilmon ran over to him. "Are you okay?"  
"I'll be fine."  
"Damn it all! The Kaiser ambushed us. There's barely anyone left in my group that's not under his control. Where are the others?"  
"Don't know. Lost them."  
"Ugh! This is bad. We're in some serious trouble." Their short reprieve was interrupted as Snimon flew over them.  
"We got to move Guilmon!" The other dinosaur nodded and they ran once more. They quickly took cover in a bush before things went quiet.

"I think he may be gone for now." Guilmon assumed. "Shoot, where's Ross and the others when you need them."  
"Yeah. I've never felt so useless without Taichi." Agumon sadly admitted. His attention was suddenly drawn to something else that he spotted in a nearby bush. "Hey, what's that over there?" The two of them walked over to the bush and found a TV just lying there.  
"A TV? What's that doing here?" Guilmon asked.  
"I don't know." The buzzing noise returned again as Snimon had doubled back and caught the both of them in his sights.  
"Look out!" It was too late. Both Digimon were struck by the Shadow Sickle and fell to the ground in pain.  
"Taichi… Taichi!" Agumon screamed out for his human partner.

 _Odaiba Middle School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 1351 Hours.  
P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Talk about luck! Our last class was canceled which means we can go straight home early!" I cheered as Taichi and I were walking right out the front doors of the school.  
"Yeah! But giving us home work on the first day of class, that's got to be a crime." complained Taichi.  
"Take it up with the National Diet." I joked. We were walking down the street when suddenly we heard a beeping sound… an all too familiar beeping sound that made us stop and our blood go cold. "Taichi… you hear that?"  
"Uh-huh." We both looked down to our belts and saw our Digivices beginning to flash red letters on the screen that spelled emergency.  
"Trouble." That was all Taichi said as we took off. We ran back into the middle school and ran up the stairs as I saw there was now a map on the screen that was pointing us somewhere.  
"It's over here." I told him as we walked into the computer lab.  
"Hey, isn't this room closed for the week?" Taichi asked me.  
"Sure is… so why is that computer on?" We both saw one computer that was just shining a bright white screen with nothing on it. We walked in and took a closer look before our whole world turned bright.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

The brightness began to die down and my eyes soon began to see the world again. I could now see in front of me a strange forest, well, strange if one had never been to the Digital World. Somehow that computer managed to transport both Ross and I back to the Digital World. At least it was less painful than getting hit by a tidal wave or flying up into the sky.  
"We're back…" I muttered. Ross groaned as he was trying to reorient himself. I looked over and noticed that he was no longer wearing his school uniform but rather a khaki long-sleeve shirt with a pocket on his chest and two by his waist, a pair of khaki pants and some tan combat boots. That uniform looked familiar especially with the marks on the front pocket that had a silhouetted drawing of a Digivice with the word 'freedom' written in kanji above it. "Ross? Why do you look like you're with the Marine Raiders?"  
"What? Hey, wait a second, you're right! My clothes changed! So did yours!" He pointed to me. I looked down and saw that I was no longer wearing my school uniform as well. My clothes had changed into a blue hoodie, some grey jeans and blue and yellow sneakers. I was also wearing an open coat over the hoodie with the back of it going down to the back of knees.  
"Wow… this is new."

"Taichi!" I heard Agumon's voice yell.  
"Agumon!" I ran as fast I could towards the sound of his voice. Hang on, Agumon. After thirty seconds of running, I found both Agumon and Guilmon on the ground looking like they were in pain.  
"Agumon!" "Guilmon!" The both of us ran up to our Digimon.  
"Taichi!" "Ross!" Both of them looked somewhat relieved to see us.  
"What happened?" I asked. I didn't get much of an answer as a Snimon with a black belt buzzed right above us. I could assume they were being attacked by this Digimon. "Evolve, Agumon!" Nothing happened and I looked at my Digivice and saw there was reaction.  
"I can't… I can't evolve, Taichi!" Agumon explained.  
"Why? What's the problem?" Ross questioned.  
"It's a long story, but we need to get out of here!" Guilmon explained. We heard a flapping sound and saw Patamon coming towards us.  
"Guys, run!" He shouted and we all ran from the attacking Snimon. We sprinted for a few minutes before Tailmon jumped in front of us.  
"This way!" She pointed towards another direction. We followed her to a cave where we took refuge.

"This is a fine situation we've wandered into." Ross panted.  
"No kidding. We need some help." I said.  
"How? Who?"  
"I'll try to reach someone." I pulled out my D-Terminal that us Chosen Children were using as a way to communicate with each other. It was mostly for fun, but now it was our best chance of receiving help.  
"Koushiro should be able to spread the word to the others."  
"Good idea." I typed up the message as fast as I could. "Please, anyone who gets this, help us!" I repeated the final sentence before I hit send. Hopefully, the message could reach back to the Real World.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 1458 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

Our final classes for the day ended so I was next to Takeru and talking to him as we gathered up our things.  
"So, have you finished unpacking?" I asked him.  
"Almost." He answered.  
"Hey, you!" I turned to see Daisuke with an angry look on his face that was directed towards Takeru.  
"It's not 'you', it's Takeru-kun!" I explained to him.  
"You, Takeru, what's your deal with Hikari-chan?"  
"Huh? What do you mean?" Takeru didn't understand the line of questioning. I knew what it was about. Daisuke was clearly jealous. I merely sighed while Takeru chuckled. "Daisuke-kun, you're funny!"  
"I'm not funny at all!" Behind him, a girl holding a piece of paper ran into the room with us.  
"There you are!" She cried.  
"Ah, Miyako-san!" I guess Takeru has met her already.

"Excuse me; you're Yagami Hikari, right?" She asked me.  
"Yes, that's right…"  
"Well, I was in the computer lab and got an e-mail directed towards Izumi Koushiro but he's already graduated. I came to you because of who sent the message. Do you know a Yagami Taichi or a McGlathery Ross?" I widened my eyes as I took the paper out of her hand. It was directed to Koushiro and read _'Trouble in the Digital World! Please, anyone who gets this, help us!'_ which was signed by Ross and Taichi.  
"Onii-chan! Ross-chan!"

The four of us headed towards the computer lab when I saw Koushiro walking up the stairs towards us. Koushiro was wearing the normal middle school uniform though he had his jacket buttoned up and wore a blue tie. He also had cut his hair so it was no longer the wild spikes that they were before.  
"Ah, Izumi-senpai!" Miyako shouted.  
"Miyako-kun, can I use the computer room?" He asked.  
"Of course! I'm so glad you're visiting even after graduating!"  
"Koushiro-san!" Takeru waved.  
"We got an e-mail from my brothers…" I walked up and showed him the e-mail.  
"Takeru-kun… Hikari-kun…" Koushiro motioned us for him to follow him to the computer lab.  
"So what exactly are you doing here?" I asked Koushiro as he typed on one of the computers.  
"I got his e-mail too… I guess considering that I used my e-mail here at school, that's the reason you got the message here as well. I was going to reply to the message… but the batteries on my D-Terminal ran out."  
"So why did you come here and not go to your house?" Takeru wondered.  
"It's faster to come here from the middle school than it is going back home. Two blocks in comparison to five."

"Hey, hey, where's the Digital World? Is it a new theme park?" Miyako wondered.  
"I think I heard Taichi-senpai talk about that, some Digimon thing…" Daisuke muttered.  
"You know Taichi-san?" Takeru was surprised to hear that.  
"They were both in the same soccer club during Taichi's last year here." I explained.  
"So, what's that? What's a Digimon?" Miyako was still on her line of questioning.  
"Miyako-san! About fixing our computer…" A younger boy walked into the lab.  
"Oh, right. Sorry, Iori-kun." The two of them soon headed on their way.  
"I knew it… The gate is open…" Koushiro said mostly to himself.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

The D-Terminal beeped indicating that I got a message. I checked and it was good news.  
"Alright! It's Koushiro; he's got Hikari and Takeru with him!" I told Ross.  
"That's good to hear."  
"Taichi! Come here, Taichi!" Agumon called out from further in the caves. Both of us went deeper into the cave and came across this chamber with a hole in the ceiling of the cave. One wrong step up there… On a small mound in the ground was a strange looking object. It was egg shaped with flames on it and a large spike through it. The biggest thing about it was the emblem on it.  
"This is…" I said.  
"The Crest of Courage?" Agumon questioned.  
"It seems like it's been here for a long time…" observed Tailmon. I took a closer look.  
"It's the Crest of Courage, but…" I grabbed it and suddenly it glowed orange. "Ahh!" I let go and three small orange orbs began to float up. "Wh-what happened?" The orbs soon shot up through the hole in the roof of the cave.  
"What did you do?" Ross asked while still looking up.  
"I don't know, but I hope it wasn't bad."

 _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

Takeru, Hikari, and I gathered our Digivices and were prepared to go to the Digital World to help Ross and Taichi. However, we still had to deal with Daisuke who was quite insistent on coming along.  
"Let me go too! Taichi-senpai is in trouble, right?" augured Daisuke.  
"That's impossible… it's not a place where everyone can go." Takeru tried to explain to him but Daisuke wasn't having any of it.  
"Impossible or whatever, I'm going! So…" Our attention was quickly changed as the computer lit up and three different colored objects shot out. One went right towards Daisuke while the other two flew past him. "Wh-what's this?" He shouted as he revealed in his hands something that made our jaws drop. It was a Digivice but different from ours. It was larger with a few more buttons and the sides were blue.  
"A Digivice!?" Takeru cried.  
"But… it's different from ours…" Hikari said. I looked back over to the screen and the monitor indicated that the gate to the Digital World was open.  
"That gate has opened in this monitor…" I explained.  
"Then, we can go to the Digital World from here?" Takeru asked.  
"We have to help Onii-chan and Ross-chan!" Hikari shouted.  
"I'm going too." Daisuke walked up. "I can go with this, right?" I nodded yes to him.  
"You can… If that's a real Digivice." I didn't doubt it, but I didn't really know if it would.

"I'm going!" determined Hikari who held her Digivice up to the monitor. The screen glowed and she was dragged into it.  
"Me too!" Takeru held up his and the same thing happened to him as well. Daisuke was completely dumbfounded.  
"What about you, Daisuke-kun?" I questioned. He quickly got over the shock and held up his Digivice as well.  
"Me too!" Just like with Hikari and Takeru, he too went to the Digital World. I held up my Digivice and was ready… until Miyako slid into the doorway.  
"Izumi-senpai!" She startled me so much I juggled my Digivice trying to hide it behind my back. "What was that light just now!?"  
"Well, I wonder…" I laughed nervously and looked away, trying not to look her in the eye as I was trying to keep what happened to the others a secret.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The brightness of the monitor died down and trio could now see that they were in the Digital World.  
"This is the Digital World?" Daisuke said. He looked down and noticed his change of attire. "Huh? My clothes changed!" All of the children's clothes had changed. Hikari was wearing a sleeveless white and pink turtleneck shirt, pink fingerless gloves that reached up almost to her shoulder and an oval opening on the top of her palms. She was also wearing yellow shorts with a brown belt, white socks and pink and grey boots. Takeru was wearing a yellow and teal long sleeve with a high collar, a pair of dark teal shorts, some dark purple socks and some green boots as well as he still had his white bucket hat. Finally, there was Daisuke who was now wearing a dark blue bomber jacket with red and yellow flames at the bottom which was over a light green shirt. He had dark olive shorts, blue socks and orange and white boots.

The three of them marched ahead with Hikari in front with her Digivice trying to pick up her bothers while Daisuke was taking in all the sights. Unbeknownst to them, they were being observed on one of the monitors deep within the base of the Digimon Kaiser.  
"Breaking into my garden without my permission…" The Kaiser chuckled. "These people have no manners, do they?"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

Hikari's Digivice was beeping indicating that we were getting close to Ross and Taichi as we kept marching ahead. Daisuke was trailing behind.  
"So this is the Digital World… it's not that different from our worl-" He clearly noticed the soda machine off to the side of the path. "What's this doing here…?" He got close before he fell backwards on the ground in surprise thanks to all the Numemon that suddenly hopped out. I couldn't help but laugh at his misfortune and Hikari tried to suppress a chuckle but couldn't. "Stop laughing!" He yelled as he got back up. "Were those things Digimon?"  
"There are many kinds, some are a lot cuter." Hikari told him.  
"And some are scarier too. Those ones you saw were Numemon. Real filthy Digimon, especially their attack." I added.  
"At least it's nice to see them back." Hikari muttered, clearly remembering the Numemon that sacrificed themselves for her back in Mugendramon's tunnels.  
"Yeah."

"We're close." I heard Taichi's voice up ahead.  
"Practically on top of us." Ross's voice said.  
"Takeru!" I heard Patamon cry and I had a huge smile on my face as I saw him flapping towards me.  
"Patamon!" He jumped into my arms and we both laughed, so happy to see each other after so long. "Long time no see!"  
"Guys! Thanks for coming to help!" Taichi shouted as he rounded the corner with Agumon, Ross, Guilmon and Tailmon.  
"Taichi-senpai! I'm glad you're okay!" Daisuke walked up. Both Ross and Taichi were surprised to see him, though Ross looked more disgusted.  
"You've gotta be friggin' kidding me." Ross muttered and turned away.  
"Wh-why is Daisuke here?" Taichi asked Hikari and myself.  
"Hikari!" Tailmon cried as she jumped up into Hikari's arms.  
"Tailmon!" She quickly gasped when she noticed something off about Tailmon; didn't she have a tail ring or something? "What happened?"

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

Tailmon recounted what happened to her earlier today as we walked back to the cave where that object that had the Crest of Courage was. She said she was attacked by Unimon who tried to stomp her but she managed to escape though her tail ring was slipped off and left behind.  
"I don't fully know how I managed to escape… but I did. That human who calls himself 'Digimon Kaiser' has been brainwashing all the Digimon." Wait, what?  
"A human?" Takeru questioned. "There's a human other than us in the Digital World?"  
"And by the way, 'Kaiser'? Is he German?" Ross asked.  
"No, I think he's Japanese… at least that what some of those who managed to catch a glimpse of him have said." Guilmon explained.  
"The Kaiser has a different Digivice than Hikari's." Tailmon continued.  
"Is that…?" Takeru and Hikari looked to Daisuke.  
"Like this?" Daisuke pulled out a Digivice to my surprise and it was much different from ours.  
"Yeah, just like that one!" Tailmon pointed.  
"But this just came out of a computer screen!" Daisuke was quick to defend himself. I came to a realization once he said that.  
 _'That was… one of the beams of light that came out of here."_ I thought to myself. _"And Daisuke is here… Does that mean… Daisuke is a new Chosen Child?"_

 _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

"Where did everyone go?" Miyako demanded. She had still not left the school, but rather has still been on my case for the past twenty minutes.  
"I-I'm telling you, they went home…" I lied.  
"Liar! You're keeping something from me! What's the Digital World? What's a Digimon?"  
"Well, about that…"  
"What's this?" She suddenly pulled out another one of those new Digivices, though this one had a red side as opposed to Daisuke's blue.  
"Why do you have it?" I asked.  
"Iori has one too, though it's yellow." She looked back to the hall where Iori was on the phone.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

"Because of that Digivice, we can't evolve." Tailmon mentioned about the Kaiser's Digivice.  
"So it's that…" I said to Agumon as I got my answer to the evolution problem.  
"If I could evolve, I'd give him a beating!" Agumon flared up.  
"And because of that, we can't fight those Digimon with Evil Rings that make them mindless slaves of the Kaiser." Guilmon explained.  
"Wait? Dark objects that when getting control of a Digimon turns them into a mindless servant? Taichi, Takeru, either of you getting déjà vu?" Ross asked, clearly remembering that Devimon's Black Gears did the same thing.  
"I don't have my Holy Ring, so I lost half my power. I'm essentially a glorified Child-Level Digimon." Tailmon cursed.  
"And we got separated from Piyomon, Tentomon and the others." Patamon also added.  
"A human who's hunting Digimon and becoming their king? It's unforgivable!" Hikari growled with anger. This guy has clearly made a mistake; he got Hikari mad.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Unknown to the group, an Evil Ring was floating above them and broadcasting their entire conversation right back to the Kaiser's lair.  
"You sure talk big. But this is a game. And I hate people who don't know how to have fun." He activated a sort of holographic keyboard and pressed a few buttons. "Let's eliminate them." One of his screens flashed a Monochromon. "Go, Monochromon!" In a prison nearby the Chosen Children's location, the doors opened up to release two Monochromon who proceeded to blindly follow the orders of their master.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"This… isn't that the Crest of Courage?" Takeru pointed to that strange colored rock on the ground.  
"Yeah… and it's really heavy." Taichi explained.  
"I tried too and that thing won't budge." Ross added. Takeru walked up and began pulling on the thing but apparently couldn't pull it out.  
"You're right!" Takeru admitted.  
"But it's so small…" Hikari moved him aside and tried herself but she got the same result. "What? I couldn't move it at all!"  
"Alright, leave it to me!" I shouted. I walked up and twitched my fingers before I bent down and grabbed it. I tugged it as hard as I could but I couldn't get it as well. "That's thing is not coming out." I panted.  
"Then how do we do this?" Ross asked.  
"Hmm… let's try two people at once. Daisuke, you wanna try with me?" Taichi asked me. I nodded and we both went back up to it and grabbed it once more. "On three… one… two… three!" We tugged once more and finally we were able to pull it out, but it broke in half!  
"Uh oh! I think we broke it!" I shouted.

Suddenly, the whole cave lit up as the hole where the object once was shot out a bright reddish orange light into the sky. The object I was holding glowed as well and it soon began to return to its pre-broken state. I looked over to the half Taichi had and it did the same. It was like it had copied itself or something.  
"Taichi-san! Your Digivice!" Takeru pointed at Taichi's device that glowed as well and it slowly morphed until it looked exactly like mine but with an orange side. Finally, our attention was brought back to the light as a black shadow formed in it before it got bigger and revealed a creature inside. It was some sort of bipedal dragon with blue skin that was white on its belly and snout. It also had two ear-like appendages on its head, a small horn on its nose and three yellow v-shaped marks on its face; one on its forehead and two upside-down under its eyes. It slowly opened them to reveal red eyes before it turned and looked directly at me.

"Yahoo!" It shouted as it jumped from the light and begun hopping around me. "Finally, finally! You moved the Digimental! I'm V-mon, what's your name?" He held out his hand.  
"D-Daisuke…" I stammered in complete shock. This whole day has been one crazy thing after the next!  
"I think I've heard of V-mon before. Small mischievous dragon Digimon with a strong sense of justice. His special attack is a powerful head-butt which he calls his V-mon Head." The orange dinosaur explained.  
"Nice to meet you, Daisuke! I've been waiting for you for a long time!"  
"Waiting for me?" I questioned.  
"Yeah! I waited for the child who would move this Digimental of Courage!"  
"Hey, wait a second! Taichi-senpai moved it too!"  
"Yeah, but he has a Digimon! I was waiting for a child who didn't have a Digimon partner!"

I didn't have exactly much time to ask any more questions as the whole cave began to rock.  
"What the? An earthquake?" I shouted.  
"No! Look there!" Takeru pointed to hole in the cave's roof where a grey and white Ankylosaur dinosaur was bursting through.  
"It's a monster!" I shouted.  
"That's another Digimon!" Hikari told me.  
"That's a Monochromon!" Ross yelled. "Adult-Level Digimon with armor and horns as hard as diamonds. Got caught up in a turf war between two of them on our first day in the Digital World!" The dinosaur began to fall through roof and down towards us.  
"Air Shot!" "Fireball!" "Baby Flame!" Three of the Digimon sent out their attacks but they all just bounced off the armor.  
"That won't work! Run!" Takeru quickly bolted for the cave exit and everyone followed.  
"Daisuke!" Taichi shouted at me and I ran as well.

"Daisuke! What are you doing?" V-mon asked me as we kept running while that Digimon was launching flame attacks at us. "Hurry up and use your courage!"  
"Eeh? What?" Does he want me to charge that monster? I don't exactly have a death wish here! We managed to escape and ran outside where I took a breather right by a ledge. "Huh? What happened?"  
"Daisuke! Over here!" Taichi yelled from the bottom of the cliff.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon shouted as he shoved me down the cliff, narrowly avoiding the flaming attack that nearly roasted me. However, even though I avoided it, Hikari nearly got hit by it and she shouted out in pain. "Are you okay, Daisuke?" V-mon asked.  
"Thanks…"  
"If you used your courage… if you just said 'Digimental Up'…"  
"Daisuke! Are you okay?" Taichi ran up to me with his orange dinosaur near him.  
"Yeah…" I got up.  
"Say 'Digimental Up!' Then I'll be able to evolve!" V-mon told me.  
"What?" Taichi questioned.

"Taichi-san! Hikari-chan hurt her ankle!" Takeru ran up to us.  
"Guys! They're in a pack!" I heard Ross shout and looked towards him and Hikari who were away from us. I could see another one of those dinosaur Digimon slowly approaching them while the one that was chasing us jumped right over. Hikari was trapped right between them and I may be the only one who could help her!  
"Use my courage, huh?" I checked to see that my goggles were busted so I tossed them away. "I'll try!"  
"Taichi! You got that Digimental too! Use it!" Taichi's partner Digimon told him.  
"Right. Daisuke? You ready?" Taichi asked me.  
"Yeah. Let's do it!"  
"Digimental Up!" We both shouted. What happened next was amazing. Both of our Digimentals glowed orange and both V-mon and the orange dinosaur glowed orange and began to get bigger.  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!"  
"Agumon, Armor-Evolve! Courageous Flame, KAJIGREYMON!"

That was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. V-mon was no longer that small dinosaur but rather a bigger one that had on armor that matched the Digimental's pattern on his face, chest, thighs, hands, and feet with that large spike coming out of his head. KajiGreymon on the other hand looked a bit different. He looked more velociraptor-ish in nature with small blue streaks on part of his orange skin. He also had the Digimental pattern on his armor too that was covering his face along with the spike, on his torso and on part of his claws, though his fingers were exposed. Both of those bad dinosaurs charged forward but both Digimon ran fast towards them and stopped them from running over Hikari and Ross by kicking them over on their sides.  
"They… evolved?" Taichi was dumbfounded, probably even more than me.  
"Awesome!" I said.

Both the dinosaurs charged once more at the newly evolved Digimon.  
"Which one do you want?" Fladramon asked KajiGreymon.  
"The one in front of me. You think you can handle the other one?"  
"Just try and keep up." They both then leapt into action by grabbing the charging Digimon and flipping them over. The Digimon attacking Fladramon got back up and launched fireballs at him but his claws just dispersed the attack with no effort. As Fladramon got close, the Digimon tossed him up into the air but he recovered and was soon engulfed in flames.  
"Fire Rocket!" Fladramon cried as he charged downward.  
"Aim for that black ring!" The white cat yelled. He crashed into it and the whole thing shattered to pieces which I guessed freed the Digimon from the Kaiser's control as his red eyes turned back to normal. At the same time, KajiGreymon was dealing with the other one. He sidestepped out of the charging beast's way and grabbed him by the tail before he swung him around and around until he released him and the dinosaur crashed into the trees. KajiGreymon charged forward to the now helpless Digimon and his claws exploded into bright flames.  
"Flare Claw!" KajiGreymon shouted as rammed right into the ring and destroyed it as well, making both of our Digimon victorious!

Both Digimon held still as they glowed orange and shrank back to their original forms. The orange lights shot towards our Digivices before transferring over to the D-Terminal's we had in our pockets. I opened mine up to see there was an egg icon on it.  
"It's alright now…" "Feeling clear headed now?" Hikari was petting the one dinosaur that was near V-mon while Ross was talking to the other one by Agumon. I guess we're in the clear now as both dinosaurs soon walked away.  
"Turning such a peaceful Digimon into a fierce servant…" Takeru observed.  
"This Kaiser already sounds like a real sicko." Ross believed.

"I'm glad to be teaming up with you, Daisuke." V-mon came over and shook my hand. I don't know why, seeing how I just met him, but I already felt some sort of connection to him. Guess it comes with the territory.  
"Yeah!"  
"Armor Evolution was really impressive!" Taichi walked up.  
"Yeah! I felt so much power back there!" Agumon said. "With a new way to evolve, we'll defeat the Digimon Kaiser for sure!"  
"Yeah! Leave it to us!" V-mon cried.  
"Daisuke… you're definitely a new Chosen Child. What you did today was impressive." Taichi began to take his goggles off. "Sorry you lost your pair, so I think that you probably will want these." He handed them to me.  
"Your goggles… but I-"  
"You've earned them. And they were getting a bit small for me anyways, but I used them in my last adventures so it was hard to let them go. Besides…" He reached into his pockets and pulled out a brand new pair of goggles similar to the old ones and placed them on his head. "I've needed to break these ones out." He smiled as I put on his old ones.  
"They suit you!" Hikari complimented which really made me happy.  
"Really?"  
"Yeah, I guess you done alright." Ross came by and gave me a hard pat on the back.

"It should be safe now." The bat-hamster was looking towards the sunset.  
"Why?" asked Takeru.  
"The Digimon Kaiser doesn't appear at night." The cat explained.  
"Is that right?" Ross muttered.  
"Hey, Taichi… isn't it about time to go home?" Agumon reminded.  
"That's right, the time moves normal in the Digital World now." The red dinosaur seemed to remember.  
"You guys are right. I hope the gate is still open. Where did you guys come from?" Taichi questioned as we all began to walk the way we came.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser was surprised by the recent turn of events that he had observed. The fact that the Digimon were able to not only evolve but to win the day was truly not foreseeable.  
"Armor Evolution, huh? My Dark Digivice should have prevented them from evolving…" He clutched the black Digivice that he had. "Hmph, I guess they're not that bad. Seems like I'll be playing seriously with you kids…" He muttered as small Digimon known as Monodramon walked into his lair. He was a small purple dragon with large bat-like wings attached to his hands and a yellow horn growing behind his head and had a pretty sad and guilty look on his face.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

As we got closer to the TV where Hikari said she and the others came from, we could hear voices from up ahead.  
"Hmph… Iori, you're late…" A female voice said.  
"I couldn't help it, I had to go home for the ohagi." A young boy's voice replied.  
"This ohagi is great…" Koushiro's voice complimented. We got to the TV and saw the elementary school's computer lab and the three of them eating.  
"That was so good! So, shall we go now?" The girl asked.  
"Wh-where?" Koushiro asked.  
"We just talked about it! The Digital World! Ahh!" She shouted as she looked right at us through the screen.  
"Hey! It's me! Daisuke!" He got real close to the TV as it began to glow and sent us all back home like it had done earlier the other way. We ended up falling out of the screen and collapsing right on top of Koushiro and those two other kids. Well, there's one thing I know as of right now. We're back in it for another adventure, that much is true. And the scary thing about it is?

I welcomed it…

* * *

And that was Chapter 1! A new adventure has begun!

Now, I know some of you will have questions, but don't worry, all will be explained with time.

Quick thing, Taichi's outfit is the Xros Wars style that user RW09 did on DeviantArt and KajiGreymon was designed by neoarchangemon on DeviantArt as well. The other Digimon in that picture will also be making an appearance so keep your eyes peeled.

Anyways, with all that said, I'm glad to be back. See you all on Friday... but if you know me and deadlines... I wouldn't exactly hold my breath.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	3. Loving Wings! Holsmon and Robinmon!

Hey, made the deadline! It's a miracle!

Anyways, really nice to see a lot of familiar faces joining along for this continuation, and love some of the words I got back.

Shoutouts to **agumonfan7** , **Amazing Spectacular Spider Man** , **DigimonAT0318** , **Gem Rose** , **God of the Challenge** , **gostman28** , **LunaChan14** , **MadDogLucario96** , **mrkiller5889** , **murakamimeow** , **narufan100** , **oshawottlover** , and **Uncreative719** for all of the faves and follows.

And to **MadDogLucario96** and **DigimonAT0318** , thanks for the reviews. Oh, and to answer one of your final questions there, Digi... yeah, where is Wormmon? Hmm... ;)

Now that's out of the way... where were we again? Oh, right, dogpiled on top of each other back in the computer lab.

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Loving Wings! Holsmon and Robinmon!**

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 1827 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Our return back to the Real World was a lot more painful than our arrival to the Digital World. Mostly because we practically dogpiled Koushiro and those two other kids that were with him. I think my face is buried into his chest, and I think Taichi is sitting on my arm.  
"This is…" Taichi began to speak.  
"The computer room?" Takeru guessed.  
"Y-you came back from the Digital World?" The young brown haired boy asked.  
"Yeah, that's right! We came back!" Daisuke shouted. "The Digital World was awesome! We were attacked by a Digimon that looked like a dinosaur!"  
"I'm going too!" The lavender haired girl yelled at him.  
"Miyako-san, let's leave it for another day…" The brown haired boy tried to calm her down.  
"Why? Iori, don't you want to go?"  
"Well, I'm interested too, but… My mother will get worried if I don't go home soon."

"Yeah, we should go home for today." suggested Taichi.  
"I think so too." Koushiro agreed.  
"We need to talk to the others about this anyways." I reminded.  
"Let's go, Miyako-san." Takeru told her.  
"Unfair! Everyone got to go but me!" She cried as we all walked out but Koushiro quickly doubled back to the room.  
"I should turn the computer off… eh? The gate closed…" Koushiro muttered.  
"Hey, Koushiro!" I came back for him. "Come on, we gotta meet up with Yamato and the others about what just happened."  
"Right, good idea, I send them the message."

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

"Yamato, you're leaving already?" Takashi, one of my band members asked me as I packed up my gear and began leaving band practice. Koushiro sent a message that told me that everyone was gathering in the park and that this was important.  
"Sorry, I have something I need to do right now." I told them. I walked down to the park and found that I was the last one there.  
"Ah, Onii-chan!" Takeru got up from his bench seat.  
"Sorry I'm late." I apologized. Sora jumped off of the jungle gym she was sitting on. Her uniform was exactly like Mimi's as it was the normal school uniform. She also had recently been letting down her hair which now reached her neck.  
"It's been a while since we all got together." She said.  
"So, Koushiro, what's this all about?" asked Jou. Jou had changed quite a bit in terms of his looks. He had newer glasses; he let his hair grow down to chin level in the back and was wearing the high school uniform of the school he was at seeing how he was just starting. The uniform was a white button long sleeve shirt with a blue blazer jacket, white pants and some blue shoes.  
"Well, it's like this…" Koushiro began to explain.

 _Hida Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 8th, 2002. 1945 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I kept on working Iori's computer like he asked while he was out on his patio practicing his kendo moves. Meanwhile my mind was more focused on what had happened earlier today. What exactly was going on with Koushiro and his friends? That new kid Takeru seemed to know all about it. What was the Digital World and a Digimon? Ugh, too many questions and no real answers. One thing's for sure though, I gonna make sure to come with them to the Digital World tomorrow, and there will be no stopping me!  
"Miyako-chan, will you have dinner with us?" Iori's mom asked me from the other room.  
"Thanks, but I'm going home already!" I told her as I finished up on the computer. Should be working properly now.

 _P.O.V. – Sora Takenouchi_

"Armor Evolution!?" Yamato questioned as Koushiro, Taichi, and Ross finished explaining what had happened earlier today.  
"Yeah… I've never seen that kind of evolution before. Before our Digimon couldn't evolve, but then once we got that Digimental, both Agumon and Daisuke's Digimon were able to do it."  
"Wait, Daisuke from the soccer club, in the Digital World?" I wondered.  
"Yeah, he somehow got a new Digivice when Taichi first touched the Digimental." Ross explained.  
"Inoue Miyako and Hida Iori, two kids who live in the same building as me, they have the new Digivices too." Takeru added.  
"So, those three are the new Chosen Children?" Jou guessed.  
"So it seems." Koushiro theorized.  
"But… if that Digimon Kaiser is hunting Digimon… Will Palmon and the rest be okay?" Mimi expressed her worries.  
"Tailmon said the others were trying to keep ahead of the Kaiser, but… it's almost impossible to tell." Hikari said.

"Why don't we go too? To the Digital World." Yamato seemed like he was all for going right now and showing that Kaiser a thing or two.  
"But… When I left the room, the gate had already closed…" explained Koushiro about why we were unable to go right now.  
"Right… makes sense."  
"So, this means were back to fighting again, right?" Mimi asked.  
"Yeah, if what happened to Onii-chan today… I think all of our Digimon will have the ability to armor evolve as well." Hikari guessed.  
"I can tell you all that I won't let that Kaiser continue to do what he's doing, not without a fight." Takeru determined.  
"Welp, guess that means we're back in the slog. At least it'll be different. I kinda pity those new kids, they get to come home and sleep in their own beds. Wish we had that luxury back in the summer of '99." Ross admitted.  
"We probably should also explain to our parents what's going on as well." I suggested.  
"Good idea, Sora-kun. The last thing we need on our mind is trying to keep up lies to our folks." Jou agreed.

"Anyway, tomorrow I'll check all the computers in the computer lab." Koushiro told us what he was going to do.  
"I'm going too. Agumon can evolve once again, so you know I'm gonna be there for him."  
"Count me in." Ross raised his hand. "Any other volunteers?"  
"I'll come too." I spoke up. I didn't really have anything to do tomorrow after school anyways. Wednesday on the other hand, I have tennis practice. Takeru and Hikari nodded indicating they were coming along too.  
"Sorry… I have a national test this week…" Jou explained.  
"Hey, if you're worried about school work, you get all night to do it considering that Kaiser don't show up at night." Taichi said.  
"Really? That's strange…" Yamato muttered. "Anyways, I skipped band practice today, so…"  
"I don't really know…" Mimi hesitated to speak. "If we're going to tell our parents, then I don't know what I'm gonna do…"  
"Don't worry about it, Mimi. You focus on telling your parents, we'll handle things tomorrow." Taichi assured her.  
"If something happens, let me know." Yamato asked.  
"Yeah."

Come the end of class the next day, I caught up with Taichi and Ross who were walking their way back to the middle school.  
"Hey, guys!" I ran up to them.  
"Sora, hey, how'd it go with your mother?" Ross asked me.  
"My mom?" He must be meaning explaining everything to our parents. Now of course, there was no real way they would stop us from trying to help the Digital World, but it would at least be nice to get their support, and I get the feeling that it will probably be needed somewhere down the road. "Oh, yeah, well, she told me to be careful, and try not to let anything bad happen to Piyomon." She still sees her as the reason why we get along so well these days, which in a way, she's not wrong.  
"Heh, you ought to hear what Phil-san said when Ross told him. Two questions, 'Will he be home by night?' and 'Will he be careful?' When Ross said yes, he said and I quote 'Give that bastard hell!'" Taichi laughed.  
"Yeah, well, Yuuko-san took quite a bit more convincing." Ross pointed out.  
"Mom came around too, so that means that that the four of us, that being us three and Hikari, are all in."

"What about the others?" I wondered.  
"Well, Koushiro's folks gave their support, and that's why he ran up ahead of us to check on the computer lab to see if the gate is open." Ross told me. "Jou messaged him saying that it took some convincing but his parents finally conceded, so long as his grades aren't affected. Yamato and Takeru's parents also gave the go ahead."  
"And Mimi-san."  
"Eh, she just told me two words, 'It's complicated.'"  
"Her parents are scared for her. Can't fully imagine what it was like going through the whole Vamdemon fight from their perspective."  
"Plus the fact that we nearly got exterminated by a Peacekeeper a few months later." reminded Taichi.  
"Right, they'll come around, Ross."  
"I know… but the sooner the better. I know for a fact that we're probably going to need everyone to fight this creep."  
"Come on, you two! We need to pick up the pace!" Taichi shouted and we ran the last block to the school.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 9th, 2002. 1457 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

After going through class on the edge of my seat, the first thing I made sure to do was go straight to the computer lab. As Iori and I got closer, I could hear Koushiro's voice from inside.  
"I knew it… the gate is still closed."  
"Huh? Izumi-senpai?" I spoke up as I walked in and got his attention.  
"Sorry about slipping in." He apologized. "I was just worried about what happened yesterday."  
"I couldn't sleep either." Iori said. "Please take us to the Digital World today."  
"But the gate…" He looked back at the screen when it made a noise. "The gate… opened!"  
"Hey there!" Daisuke walked in as he brought with him the rest of the group from yesterday including a red-headed girl I had never seen before.  
"Hello." The girl said.

She, or rather Sora, soon asked to see those new devices that Daisuke, Iori, and myself had gotten yesterday which I was more than happy to show.  
"These are the new Digivices?" Sora observed.  
"Yeah, when I grabbed the Digimental, those three Digivices came out of it, and when me and Daisuke pulled out the Digimental, it changed my Digivice into one like it." Taichi explained as he pulled out his Digivice.  
"What are we doing here right now!? Let's hurry and go to the Digital World!" I complained.  
"Heh… the Digital World is a pretty scary place…" Daisuke put on a smug look but I could see right through him.  
"Stop showing off, you've only been there once!"  
"He ain't wrong though. I won't sugarcoat it for you, keep on your toes." Ross advised.  
"We're ready for some danger!" Iori stated.

"The other computers seem to be fine. It seems the gate is only open in this computer." Koushiro walked back towards us after looking at the other monitors. "However, I don't know what to expect. This is the first time a gate has opened two days in a row."  
"Anyway, let's go! To the Digital World!" Daisuke shouted. We all nodded in agreement before we practically jumped out of our skins when we heard a voice from the doorway.  
"Well, if it isn't Yagami! It's been a while…" We all turned to see that it was Mr. Fujiyama.  
"Fujiyama-sensei!" Taichi spouted.  
"McGlathery, Takenouchi and Izumi too… so what brought the graduates here?" He asked.  
"S-sensei, what are you doing here?"  
"I'm in charge of the computer club!"  
"Eeh? You can use a computer, sensei?" All four of the older kids questioned.  
"Of course not!" Well, at least he admits it. I get the feeling he's going to be asking me so many questions throughout this year about a computer.

"Well, if that's the case, Fujiyama-sensei, then I probably should try to explain to you a few things." Koushiro began to lead him out of the room.  
"And I'd like to know what our homework is for the next few weeks." Iori came along with them.  
"But I haven't even assigned any yet." Mr. Fujiyama explained.  
"Yes, but I'd like to get a head start."  
"And I've got some more jokes that I'd like to tell you." Ross said as they all left, but not before Ross looked back at us and mouthed 'Go! Go! Go!' and motioned his arm indicating that they were going to distract Mr. Fujiyama while we went to the Digital World. I know that must have been tough on Iori to also be a part of that, but I guess we can't let anyone really know what we're doing here.  
"Well, now that's taken care of, let's go!" Daisuke pumped his fist.

"Hold on." Sora said which almost set me off. I'm this close to going to the Digital World and there's just one thing after the other stopping me! "Taichi? Would you mind staying?"  
"Huh? Why?"  
"Just in case, we should have someone keeping watch just in case one of the teachers comes around."  
"She's right, Taichi-san. We'd rather not have to deal with a mountain of questions." Takeru agreed. Taichi looked apprehensive about it, like he felt something would go wrong if he didn't come along.  
"Onii-chan. We'll be alright." Hikari told him. He soon smiled once she said that.  
"Alright, but message me if you need any help." He conceded.  
"We will." Sora nodded.  
"Okay, can we go now!?" I shouted.  
"Yeah, let's go!" Daisuke also chimed in. Everyone soon turned back to the computer and held up their Digivices to it, so I followed what the rest of them did and soon I was engulfed in a bright light.

When the light died down, I could see that I was now in a field of flowers with the others.  
"Wow, this is the Digital World…" I said in awe. I looked down and saw that my clothes had changed. "Wow, cool!" I exclaimed. I had on a long sleeve light blue turtleneck on with a tan vest over it. I had on white gloves, red pants, and tall green and white boots that were zip up. I also had a green backpack and had an orange leather helmet on my head.  
"Wow, you guys weren't kidding about the clothes." Sora muttered. Sora's clothes had changed as well. She was wearing a white tank top with red edging, a short red skirt that had white pants underneath that went just past her knees and some white boots that went up to the end of the pants.  
"Look, look! Mine are really cool!" Daisuke got my attention and I could see his clothes had changed too.  
"Well, they're not bad. But mine are cooler." I told him.  
"Mine are cooler!" We soon began to devolve into a back and forth about who's were better.  
"These new Chosen Children seem really different from us… Is it the age?" asked Sora.  
"Don't start talking like an old lady!" Hikari teased.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The children soon began walking through the field in search of their Digimon. However, their moves were being monitored by the Kaiser.  
"I was almost worried they wouldn't come back… now it's time for the real fun to begin." He chuckled. "Go, Airdramon!"

 _P.O.V. – Sora Takenouchi_

"Hey, V-mon! Where are you?" Daisuke called out. "V-mon!"  
"Daisuke! Daisuke!" A blue dragon like Digimon ran into our view. This must be Daisuke's partner.  
"V-mon!"  
"Look, I found one of Patamon's friends!" We looked behind him and saw Tailmon, Patamon and more importantly Piyomon coming from right behind him.  
"Sora!" Piyomon cried as she flew right towards me.  
"Piyomon!" I nearly had tears in my eyes as we embraced each other.  
"I missed you, Sora!"  
"Me too…"

Our reunion was sadly cut short when we heard a roar above us and saw a large blue dragon with red wings coming right for us.  
"Sora-san! Duck!" Takeru shoved me out of the way before that thing could hit me. Everyone else hit the deck as the dragon flew over, causing Miyako to scream.  
"Magical Fire!" "Air Shot!" Both Piyomon and Patamon launched their attacks but the just merely hit the dragon without doing any real damage to him.  
"Careful! That's Airdramon!" Tailmon warned. "He's an Adult-Level Digimon with a lot of firepower. His Flame Burst is devastating if you get in the way!"  
"Alright, that's it! Daisuke! I need to Armor-Evolve!" V-mon told Daisuke.  
"Right! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" So that's what an Armor Digimon looks like.

Fladramon jumped into the air but Airdramon just kept his distance away. Fladramon just couldn't get enough height to reach him and try to destroy that Evil Ring.  
"Damnit! He's too high!" cursed Fladramon. The Airdramon responded to all this by launching a fireball out of his mouth that hit way to close to the ground near us. Miyako just screamed once again.  
"Guys, look out!" Hikari shouted as she pointed to the horizon. We could see four more Airdramon coming right out way.  
"There's too many of them!" Takeru cried.  
"We need to get out of here!" I advised.  
"Quick! Into the jungle!" Patamon pointed to a nearby jungle. We all got up and ran for it but I noticed Miyako was still on her knees and not moving.  
"This is… This is… Noooooo!" She screamed.  
"Miyako-chan!" I ran back and picked her up off the ground and we rejoined the others in the jungle.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I'm way in over my head here. I though this place would be amazing, but it turns out to be just one big nightmare. The close calls and the fact that we can't do anything is just too much. We somehow managed to escape from all those Airdramon or whatever they're called, only to get lost in this jungle.  
"This bites!" Daisuke groaned. "We could've easily took those guys on."  
"If only didn't fly so high!" V-mon was also disappointed with his actions.  
"So what now?" Hikari asked. As soon as she said that, a strange beeping noise filled the air. I heard it coming from my own person and saw that it was the Digivice making that noise.  
"Is it supposed to do this?" I wondered.  
"But our Digivices aren't reacting in any way…" Takeru wondered.  
"Same with mine…" Sora admitted.  
"Hmm… it might just be because… Everyone, follow me!" Piyomon alerted and we followed her.

We walked through the jungle until we came across this large pyramid that was in the middle of the jungle.  
"That looks like a Mayan pyramid." Hikari observed.  
"Well, whatever it is, my Digivice says that there's something there." I told everyone.  
"Come on, it's up these stairs!" Piyomon exclaimed.  
"Wait? We have to walk up all these stairs?" I exasperated.  
"Come on, are you feeling tired?" Daisuke teased. Oh, like hell I'm gonna let him get the better of me. I steeled myself and followed the others up the stairs.

As we reached the top, we walked into a chamber that had a strange looking pedestal in the center of the room.  
"Look there, Sora." Piyomon motioned her arm.  
"Are those… Digimentals?" Sora asked. The object was a silver egg shaped object with two sharp blades out of the sides and a purple heart-like symbol on it.  
"Looks like my Digivice is reacting to it." I said. Sora walked forward and got a better look at it.  
"Well, it has the Crest of Love on it." She grabbed it and tried to pull it out but it wouldn't budge. "I can't…" Her eyes widened as she must have thought of some way to pull it out. "Miyako-chan. Give me a hand, will you?" I reluctantly nodded and grabbed it too. We quickly pulled and the thing came out but broke in half. The hole where the object was shot out a beam of red light and the object soon glowed red as well before it restored itself to how it was before. The same thing happened to Sora's as well before she quickly grabbed her Digivice and it morphed into one looking like mine, but with a deep rose color for the sides.  
"Just like with Taichi-san and Daisuke-kun yesterday." Takeru muttered.

In the center of the light, a dark shadow began to form before it cleared to reveal that a creature was in it. This creature looked like a bald eagle with red feathers and yellow feet. It also had a belt around its head and a single red feather sticking out behind the belt. It opened its eyes to reveal that it had bright blue eyes before it flew right towards me and landed right in front of me.  
"My name is Hawkmon." It spoke in a calm tone. "I have been waiting for you."  
"W-wait… You've been waiting for me?"  
"Correct. If you are the one who moved the Digimental, then that means we're partners. What is your name by the way?"  
"Uh, Miyako, but partners? I'm not so sure…" I whispered that last part.  
"Well, Miyako-san, let us fight together!"  
"W-wait a second! I can't fight!"  
"Well… that is a problem."

"Miyako…" Sora walked in between the two of us and put her hands over my hands.  
"Sora-san…"  
"Back on our previous adventures, a girl who I'm positive you'll meet soon called Mimi-chan said the same thing." She began to explain. "'I don't want to fight… I don't want to see anyone hurt…' That's what she said at one point in our journey. I don't want to either. But someday, you'll be thankful for meeting the Digimon and taking part in an adventure with them. So, do your best." She tried to encourage me. My biggest fear right now ever since arriving was getting hurt and seeing others get hurt. But Sora's words… If she's willing to fight even if she doesn't want to see others hurt, then I can do it too!

The whole place suddenly rocked as powerful explosions were erupting outside.  
"Looks like those Airdramon found us!" Daisuke shouted.  
"If they keep this up, they'll bring the whole place down around our heads!" Hikari worried.  
"Miyako-chan! We're the only ones who can do this!" Sora got my attention. She's right. If Daisuke's Digimon can't fight those Airdramon properly, then it was up to us.  
"Now, Miyako-san, please yell 'Digimental Up!" Hawkmon informed.  
"Sora! I'm ready too!" Piyomon shouted. Both Sora and I looked at each other and nodded.  
"Digimental Up!" We shouted.  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!"  
"Piyomon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Love, ROBINMON!"

I thought V-mon evolving into Fladramon was impressive but this was even more breathtaking. Holsmon had turned into a quadruped eagle with two short wings but the Digimental placed itself over his head and the steel wings had extended out which I guess is what would help him fly. Robinmon on the other hand, looked similar to Piyomon. The armor had extended itself across her entire torso and her wings had extended to four large feathers on both sides. Both of them flew out of the pyramid and took to the skies. The Airdramon turned their attention away from us and flew right after the two birds. We used the distraction to quickly run down the stairs.

Holsmon had two of those Airdramon pursuing but he quickly flew rings around them before he got behind one of them.  
"Red Sun!" His eyes glowed and he fired out two glowing arrows that struck the Airdramon in the back, causing it to growl in pain.  
"The Evil Ring! Aim for the Evil Ring!" V-mon shouted out. Holsmon got the message and launched another Red Sun which hit the ring and caused it to shatter. He then turned to the other one with him and looked right at him.  
"Udjat Gaze" Two yellow rings shot out from Holsmon's eyes and struck the Airdramon which stopped him in midflight. That attack must be like some sort of paralysis attack. With the Airdramon stuck, he was an easy target for one more Red Sun. The attack hit and that was two down now. Robinmon had the three remaining Airdramon following her before she turned to face all three of them.  
"Metal Wing!" Her eight feathers shot out and turned to metal before they began to chase after two of the Airdramon who tried to dodge the attack. The feathers homed in on their targets and soon both of the Airdramon's rings were destroyed and Robinmon's wings returned to her. The final Airdramon was now trapped between the two armor Digimon.  
"Together now!" They shouted.  
"Tempest Wing!" "Cyclone Burst!" The two of them spun rapidly like a tornado and flew right into the ring and destroyed it.

"They did it!" I shouted as I jumped for joy. Both of them flew back towards us before they turned back into their previous forms. The light that came from them shot back to my Digivice and then moved to my D-Terminal. The same happened to Sora as well.  
"Sora! I did it! I did it!" cheered Piyomon.  
"You did great, Piyomon!" Sora cried.  
"Miyako-san. Will you help me from now on?" Hawkmon asked.  
"You better believe it! That was amazing!" I told him.  
"Miyako-chan… you did great today as well." Sora complimented me.  
"Thank you, Sora-san."  
"Looks like it's starting to get late. We better get going." Takeru suggested.  
"Yeah, let's go home." Hikari said.  
"Aw, man! I wanted to show up the Digimon Kaiser some more." groaned Daisuke which made us all laugh.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"And now they can challenge me in the skies. These insects are proving to be quite resourceful. I'm going to have to rethink on how I deal with them. But in the end, they will all still bow before me." The Kaiser thought aloud.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Geez, Koushiro, way to make things way more complicated than they should be." I told him as we were walking back to the computer lab.  
"Well, I had to explain things to Fujiyama-sensei considering he knew next to nothing about computers." He defended.  
"Yeah, but I think you may have confused him even more." Iori admitted.  
"It doesn't really matter anyways. We kept him out of the computer room and that's important." I shrugged. The computer lab lit up in front of us indicating that the others were probably back. We turned the corner to see the others dogpiled on each other.  
"You know, I get the feeling we're gonna have to figure out how to not do that." Taichi said as he came back from the corner, probably saw the others were coming and got out of the way.  
"So, I guess it's too late for me to go to the Digital World." Iori sadly said.  
"Don't worry, Iori! You can come tomorrow." Miyako assured him.  
"Yeah, and I'll come with you." Koushiro patted him on the back.  
"Come on; let's get out of here before we get locked in." Taichi informed as we all headed on our way out and listened to what had happened. I really don't know how this fight with the Kaiser is going to be fought, but I'm sure about one thing: we've gotta be pissing him off.

Though that being a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen…

* * *

And that was Chapter 2.

Don't worry about Iori's first time in the Digital World or Daisuke being captured... that's the next chapter.

Well, that's basically it for me, so see you all next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	4. Drilling for Knowledge!

And we're back for more! This would've been done a few hours earlier, but I got distracted watching the _**Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade**_ on Paramount Network last night.  
"Those people are trying to kill us!"  
"I know, Dad!"  
"This is a new experience for me."  
"It happens to me all the time."

Anyways, shoutouts to **Tomoe Mami** , **breaker101** , and **rigenki** for your follows and faves.

For the reviews, thanks **agumonfan7** , **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **GreenD019**. Oh, by the way Green, yes, there will be a Digimental of Honor and Guilmon will evolve with someone else... you'll know exactly who soon.

So, with all that out of the way... How is young Iori going to handle the Digital World?

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Drilling for Knowledge! Digmon and ForceBeemon!**

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 9th, 2002. 2132 Hours.  
P.O.V. - Ross McGlathery_

When Taichi, Hikari, and myself returned back home, we were discussing what had happened earlier today, what we were going to do tomorrow and what our next move was in this fight against the Digimon Kaiser.  
"So, yesterday was you and Daisuke, today was Sora and Miyako, and then tomorrow might be Koushiro and Iori." I said to Taichi.  
"Do you really think so? It might be someone else." He told me.  
"The way I see it, is that one of the newer Chosen Children need an older member to help pull the Digimental that has their Digimon partner with it." Hikari gave her take on the whole situation.  
"Well, now that you say that, it might actually be Koushiro. Are you sure you're not going to come along with them, Ross?" Taichi asked me.  
"If no one else comes, then yeah. Someone's got to keep their eye on the lab just so we don't have another run in with Fujiyama-sensei or one of the other teachers. I only say this because neither you nor Sora are coming tomorrow."  
"Yeah, I've got soccer practice and Sora's got tennis."  
"We really need to start figuring out a way how to get some more time on our hands if we want to combat the Kaiser." Hikari nodded.

"It's safe to assume this freak has got all the time on his hands. He isn't being burdened by previous commitments. I think I might just have to resign from the golf team in order to be a part of the fight." I admitted.  
"It's not like you were having that much promise." Taichi gave a bit of a snide remark.  
"Hey, I shoot below par!"  
"Barely, let's face it, Ross. You'd never make it on the Tour with that kind of play."  
"Who said that was my plan? This was only to fill in some free time. I still plan on becoming a Marine, that will never change."  
"Look, I think we're thinking a bit too far right now. Right now, we're at least showing the Kaiser that he can't get away with what he's doing. We'll figure out what to do next soon. Right now, let's just clear our minds for tonight." Hikari, being the voice of reason, suggested. She was right. No use thinking that far ahead right now. We'll figure out some way to beat him.

 _Hida Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 9th, 2002. 2143 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"Iori? Are you alright?" Mother came into my room as I was getting ready for bed.  
"Uh, yeah. I'm fine, why do you ask?"  
"Well, you took almost an hour to eat dinner. You're usually much quicker than that, so that's why I'm asking if you're okay."  
"I'm fine; I've just got some things on my mind tonight." I told her.  
"Iori, it's only the first week of school, you shouldn't really be worried with anything as of right now. Or is there something else going on?" I didn't want to tell her what was going on but I didn't want to lie to her either, thankfully, I could be able to get around it.  
"You're right. I'm just thinking too hard right now. I guess I'm just kinda of nervous with what the future may hold." Looks like she accepted it because she smiled at me.  
"Alright then, well, I'll just let you get some rest." She then closed the door and walked away. I sighed.

My mind was currently focused on what was going to happen tomorrow. I had been unable to go to the Digital World because I thought that I was needed to keep Fujiyama-sensei distracted and from discovering what the others were doing. Now I'm sure that it will be my turn tomorrow, and my concern is, am I ready for it? Am I ready for what is probably going to be asked for me? Both Daisuke and Miyako now have Digimon and now are fighting this Digimon Kaiser. So what about me? I walked out onto my porch and picked up a phone that I had in my room. I dialed the number as I sat down and looked out towards the city.

"Hello?" I heard Miyako's voice on the other end of the line.  
"Hello, Miyako-san." I said. Technically, she was only a few apartments down from me, but calling her wouldn't draw as much attention from my mother than simply walking through the front door.  
"Iori! What's going on?"  
"Nothing much. I've just been thinking about tomorrow."  
"Don't tell me you're getting some jitters about going."  
"No, but I'm just concerned if I can actually do what you and Daisuke-san have done." I could hear her slightly chuckled.  
"I think you're putting way too much on your chest."  
"Maybe."

"Look, you'll do fine tomorrow. I'm sure of it. Trust me, I fell apart pretty fast as soon as I arrived but I had Sora-san help me out. Whoever comes with you tomorrow, more likely Izumi-senpai, will be able to help you too."  
"But what if I'm not really worthy for a Digimon partner." I expressed my worries.  
"Iori, you're probably the most worth out of all of us here. I'm sure whoever is your partner Digimon, they would be proud to call you a partner… What!? No, I'm using it right now! Well, just use your own cell-phone! Who cares if you've used up most of your minutes! Ugh, sorry, Iori, my sister wants to use the phone." Miyako explained. I chuckled after hearing that.  
"All right then. Goodnight, Miyako-san, see you tomorrow." I then hung up and looked towards the city once more. I hope she's right.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 10th, 2002. 1501 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

"Three days in a row… and around the same time." I muttered as I was checking to see if the gate to the Digital World was open, which it was closed just a few seconds ago before it opened once more.  
"Maybe it knows that we're here or something." Ross suggested.  
"Maybe." We heard the door to the computer lab open and saw everyone else walking in.  
"Sorry, we got held up for a few minutes." explained Takeru.  
"Well, you're just in time. The gate is open now so that means we can go to the Digital World." I said.  
"Yeah, let's go show that creep who's boss!" Daisuke shouted.  
"That's the spirit, but try not to get too overconfident. This guy has probably got plenty of surprises for us." Ross advised.  
"Speaking of the Kaiser, has anyone got any idea who this person is really?" We all looked towards Iori as he said that.

"What brought this on, Iori?" Miyako asked.  
"Well, that's what's been going through my mind for most of the day. I was thinking that surely this person must have some sort of life that he has to go back to."  
"Yeah, that's right. Our Digimon did say that the Kaiser doesn't come out at night." Hikari remembered.  
"This means that this person has to be keeping up some sort of appearance. Not try drawing attention towards them." I guessed.  
"Exactly, so I was thinking that if we found out who this person was, then maybe we could stop them here in the Real World rather in the Digital World where he clearly has power." Iori finished giving his thoughts.  
"But there remains the problem of finding out who he is. And even if we did, it's probably someone we don't know. Heck, that person might not even live in the city or country." Miyako expressed her doubts about the idea.  
"Well, Guilmon did say he was Japanese." Ross pointed out.  
"But that could be anywhere. He could live in Osaka or Hiroshima, or even might live out of the country. He might be like Mimi-san and be a Japanese-American or something." Takeru believed.  
"I'm sorry. It was just a thought." Iori apologized.  
"It's fine, Iori-kun. That was actually a brilliant idea." I told him. His spirits lifted a bit.

"Well, if we're all done coming up with some plans, now would be the time for action!" Daisuke was quite determined to get a move on.  
"Slow it down there, Daisuke; maybe not all of us are ready." Hikari reminded him.  
"Oh, yeah. Of course, whenever you're ready." He quickly changed his tune. Strange.  
"Well, I'm all ready if we're all waiting on me. I just hope to do a good job." Iori said.  
"Don't worry." Ross gave him a pat on the back. "You're in good hands. You've got Brainiac with ya, you'll be fine." Brainiac? I'm not sure where that's from, but I get the feeling he meant it in a good sense. "Well, I'll look over the computer lab while you guys are out. Send the Kaiser my regards."  
"Will do, Ross-chan." smiled Hikari. We all pulled out our Digivices and held them up to the screen.  
"Good luck, everyone." I gave one last saying before we were all engulfed by the light on the screen and sent to the Digital World.

When the light died down, I could see we were now on some small grassy hills that was being overlooked by some mountains behind us.  
"So this is the Digital World…" Iori looked around. "Oh, my clothes!" He finally noticed that he had a change in wardrobe. He was now wearing a beige tunic with a white collar and purple edges on it. He also had some purple pants and brown and white slip-on shoes. I looked down to see that my clothes had changed too. I was now wearing a long-sleeve orange polo shirt, some green denim jeans and some brown tennis shoes. "These aren't bad at all."  
"They're a good look on you." I complimented him.  
"Thanks, Koushiro-san."  
"Come on; let's see if we can find the others." Takeru walked ahead.

"V-mon!" "Hawkmon!" "Tailmon!" "Patamon!" "Tentomon!" We walked forward and called out for our Digimon. After a few more calls, we finally got a response.  
"Daisuke!" "Miyako-san!" "Hikari!" "Takeru!" "Koushiro-han!" We saw our Digimon coming over one of the opposite hills and ran right towards us. I ran over to Tentomon and grabbed his hands.  
"Tentomon!"  
"Koushiro-han, you look great!" He told me. I laughed as he said that.  
"I'm just glad to see you're safe."  
"It hasn't been easy, he admitted."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At the same time the Chosen Children were reuniting with their own Digimon, their moves were being monitored by the Digimon Kaiser who was practically licking his lips in anticipation for their arrival.  
"I've been waiting… come on, let's start the game." He said. He then pressed a few buttons on his screen. "Go, Snimon!" The Snimon that had attacked the other Digimon back on the 8th flew fast over the forest. "Go, Mojyamon!" The yeti-like Digimon also began marching out of the forest towards the unsuspecting Chosen Children. "Go, Drimogemon!" The mole Digimon burst from a rock formation in the mountains and soon began tunneling under the ground. The Kaiser believed that this force of his would catch the Chosen Children completely off guard.

 _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

As we finished up reuniting with our Digimon, we could see the shadow of a cloud moving over our heads before it passed over and the shadow of a Digimon was now hovering over us. We looked up to see a controlled Snimon heading right towards us!  
"Everyone, down!" I yelled out and everyone obeyed as the bug Digimon flew right by us.  
"What is that thing!?" Iori questioned.  
"Snimon! An Adult-Level Insect Digimon! His Shadow Sickle makes short work of his foes… trust me on that!" Tentomon answered. The bug soon turned around and tried to come back for another run against us.  
"Air Shot!" "Petit Thunder!" Patamon and Tentomon launched their attacks but Snimon was too fast for them. Tailmon jumped up and got incredible height to the point where she could hit him.  
"Neko Punch!" She shouted but the punch did next to nothing and got her swiped hard to the ground. "I knew it… without the Holy Ring, I have no power…" She muttered about her lost tail ring.

"Damn it… Daisuke, let me Armor-Evolve!" V-mon cursed.  
"You sure? Yesterday…"  
"I can get him!"  
"Alright, Digimental-" Daisuke was unable to say more as the ground exploded next to him and he fell down a large hole. He grabbed a rock and was hanging on but I could see that this hole was made by a controlled Drimogemon who was waiting for him at the bottom.  
"Daisuke! That's Drimogemon! An Adult-Level Digimon that burrows like a mole! That Drill Spin of his is to be avoided!" I called out to him.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon tried to reach down to recover Daisuke but some trees near us snapped and we turned to see a Mojyamon coming right for us.  
"Mojyamon! Watch out for his-" Takeru tried to give a heads up but the yeti beat him to it about his special attack.  
"Hone Hone Boomerang!" Mojyamon threw his bone boomerang and it struck V-mon in the back of the head and he fell into the hole.  
"V-mon!" Daisuke let go of the rock to catch him but it caused him to fall further before the Drimogemon caught the both of them then retreated back into the dark tunnels with its captives.

"Daisuke!" Miyako cried out for our now captured comrade.  
"W-we have to help them…" Iori muttered as I think he was now stunned in shock and fear over the recent events.  
"We need to escape!" I told the others.  
"But, Daisuke-san…"  
"We can't help him if we get caught too! Now come on!" I grabbed his shoulder and he turned and followed us to the mountains where we would try to escape from our pursuers.  
"Come on, hurry up!" Hikari shouted.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Ugh… my head is killing me right now. I slowly started to come back to and I tried to remember what had happened. Let's see… V-mon and I fell down a large hole into the hands of a giant drill mole and then everything went black. Okay, got that out of the way. I opened my eyes and suddenly realized I was hanging off the side of a massive canyon. I was being held by cuffs that were drilled into the canyon side. I took a look around and while it was a majestic view, I'd rather not be in this situation that I find myself in.

"Wh-where…" I muttered out loud.  
"So you're awake?" I heard a voice say.  
"Who's that?" I looked up above me to see a strangely dressed person above me.  
"I didn't think capturing you would be so easy…" The person chuckled. Oh, now I know who this is. "I'm disappointed that you weren't tougher."  
"Are you the Digimon Kaiser?"  
"That's right."  
"Aren't you a kid like me!?" This was kind of a surprised to me. My idea of the Kaiser was some sick adult or something, not some kid who looked to only be a few years older than me. That's all I could tell about him, those shades masked any other discernable features, so no figuring out who he really is unless he takes those glasses off. The Kaiser laughed upon my quick observation of him.  
"Like you? Don't make me laugh. You and I are very different. This is the proof."

He snapped his fingers and a wall opened up on the other side of the canyon. The wall revealed V-mon who was chained up just like me!  
"V-mon!" I called out to him.  
"Daisuke! Heh, heh, they go me…" He nervously laughed.  
"Dammit… if you could Armor-Evolve…!"  
"That's impossible." The Kaiser informed. "You can't do anything without these, right?" I looked to see he had my Digivice and my D-Terminal. Damn it all… I'm in some serious trouble here.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

This is very bad. We had managed to escape from our attackers but Daisuke was now a prisoner. We were sitting in a cave and doing nothing which made me feel even worse because I felt so useless to the others right now.  
"Are you sure it was smart to send Miyako and Hikari out there?" Takeru asked Koushiro. Miyako's Digimon Armor-Evolved and the girls took to the skies to try to find where Daisuke had been taken. In the meantime, the rest of us were just sitting here in the cave waiting for them to come back.  
"They'll be fine for the time being. Right now, we need to focus on how we're going to rescue Daisuke-kun."  
"It's pretty dark in this cave." Patamon admitted.  
"It's actually the entrance to a massive labyrinth of tunnels that go through these mountains." Tentomon explained. I got up and walked a bit deeper into the tunnel before my Digivice suddenly began to beep.  
"What's this?" I questioned.  
"I think Iori-kun just picked up a Digimental." Takeru guessed.  
"Let's go see." Koushiro said. I looked at my Digivice and followed it to where the source of the beeping was.

The cave was still dark, but Tentomon used his electrical powers to create a light source for us, and my Digivice was leading us through the maze of tunnels. After a couple of minutes of wandering, we finally came close to the source. We found ourselves looking upon a massive underground temple that looked untouched for many years. It was actually amazing. We walked further ahead and soon we found what must have been a Digimental at the center of the chamber. It was a yellow colored egg-shaped object on a pedestal.  
"That's a Digimental." Takeru said.  
"And it's got the Crest of Knowledge on it." Koushiro added. He walked up to it but before he grabbed it, he turned to look to me. "Actually, I think I may need some help. Iori-kun?" I nodded nervously to him and walked up to the pedestal. We grabbed it and pulled on it which caused it to snap in half. A purple light shot out of the hole that was left and lit up the room. What happened next was just like what Miyako said happened yesterday; the Digimental repaired itself in our hands and Koushiro's Digivice became like mine with its sides being purple.

We then looked back to see a shadow forming in the light before it soon revealed itself to be a yellow colored armadillo-like creature. It looked to be asleep before it opened its green eyes and turned to look at me. It then hopped forward and landed right in front of me. Was this my Digimon partner?  
"I slept well…" The armadillo yawned. "Are you the one who woke me up?" He asked. I silently nodded. "My name is Armadimon. Thanks for waking me up, dagyaa!" Dagyaa? That's a word that is used as a sentence ending particle, but only used preferably by those from the city of Nagoya which now that I hear his voice, he actually sounds like he's from there.  
"Ah… yeah… um… my name is Iori, by the way."  
"Pleased to meet you, Iori! Proud to be your partner, dagyaa!" Well, he seems very happy to meet me, but am I really worthy of a Digimon like this?

"Iori-kun, what do you think of the Digital World?" Koushiro asked me.  
"Well… What do I think… I don't know yet, I just got here."  
"But you're thinking something, aren't you?"  
"Yes… I'm thinking that I'm not up for the challenge that is before me nor that I'm worth of having a Digimon partner like Armadimon. Then there are all my own theories that I'm having in my head. New questions just keep popping up in my mind and I want to learn more."  
"You have a really curious mind, as I thought."  
"A curious mind?"  
"If you have any questions, just ask me. We're your friends, and we'll always help you out. Let's learn together." I slowly nodded as he said that. "And about being up for the challenge, I'll tell you this. None of us were really up for what challenges the Digital World had in store for us, but we still got through them. And that's what it means to be a Chosen Child. Willing to keep going and not give up, especially on your friends. And if you have that mindset, then you are more than capable of being a worthy partner to your Digimon." That last sentence really got to me. The way he put it… he actually made a good point. If I'm willing not to give up on my friends, then I can be a good partner. I turned back to Armadimon and gave him a smile which somehow he must have known what it meant as he smiled too. I think we're gonna be great partners.

We all returned back to the surface where we found Miyako and Hikari awaiting us.  
"Where were you?" wondered Hikari.  
"We found our Digimentals down in the tunnels and I found my Digimon partner. Everyone, this is Armadimon." I explained. I guess Armadimon got kind of embarrassed as he just laughed and rubbed the back of his head.  
"So what happened?" Takeru questioned the girls about what they found out.  
"We saw that Snimon heading towards a canyon not too far away from here. I'm guessing that Daisuke must be there." Miyako told us.  
"Well, then, we've got our Digimentals, so I say we go help Daisuke. Ready, Tentomon?" Koushiro asked his partner.  
"Ready as ever, Koushiro-han!"  
"What about you, Armadimon?" I also asked.  
"Just say 'Digimental Up!' and I'll show you what I've got, dagyaa!" Both Koushiro and I looked back at each other and nodded. Moment of truth time now.  
"Digimental Up!" We shouted.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"  
"Tentomon, Armor-Evolve! Drilling Intelligence, FORCEBEEMON!"

The two new Digimon before us were incredible. Digmon was a large yellow cricket like insect with a drill on his snout, wings on his back like a beetle and two drills on his hands, though he had an extra pair of hands below the drill ones. ForceBeemon was a bit of a smaller Digimon that had two drills for hands, an extra pair of claws below them, a stinger on his back and two glowing blue wings.  
"We know where he is; let's go help Daisuke-han!" ForceBeemon said. We all quickly moved out to rescue Daisuke before something bad happens to him.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Dammit! Give me back my Digivice!" Daisuke yelled at the Kaiser. "At least let V-mon go!"  
"I'm not going to do that. It's your punishment for trespassing in my area. I'll show you how your Digimon becomes my slave…" The Kaiser snapped his finger and an Evil Ring appeared and began floating down towards V-mon.  
"Stop!" Daisuke begged, but the Kaiser evilly chuckled in response.  
"Heh… you're free to try. But there's no way I'd become your slave!" V-mon shouted much to the Kaiser's surprise.  
"What did you say?" He demanded an answer.  
"I've waited a long time… I've waited to meet Daisuke… So, how could I become your slave now that I've met him?"  
"V-mon…" Daisuke was touched by V-mon's defiance.  
"We'll see how defiant you are once my ring is around your neck." The Kaiser retorted.  
"Stop!" Daisuke yelled once more as the ring was near V-mon.

"Beam Drill!" A voice yelled out and a silver arrow of energy flew through the canyon that hit and destroyed the Evil Ring.  
"What?!" The Kaiser was completely surprised by what happened. ForceBeemon suddenly appeared right in front of him but then flew downward to where Daisuke was. "Swarm Strike!" The stinger on ForceBeemon's abdomen glowed and he did four quick jabs on Daisuke's restraints which caused them to shatter. Daisuke didn't even have time to scream from falling because he was quickly caught by the two-foot bug and he wrapped himself around Daisuke's torso like he was a large jetpack. At the same time, the wall behind V-mon exploded revealing Digmon who quickly grabbed him with his extra arms.  
"We're here to save you, dagyaa!" He said.  
"Thanks!" V-mon was grateful.

The Kaiser merely scoffed at what had happened and turned around only to find Tailmon standing in the way of his escape route.  
"You won't get past me." She darkly stated.  
"Is that so? Do you even know who you're talking to?" The Kaiser told her. Out of nowhere, Monodramon jumped right in front of the Kaiser.  
"I won't let you through!" The dragon stated. If Guilmon sounded like an Englishman speaking Japanese, then Monodramon's voice was like that of an Irishman. He jumped forward towards Tailmon but she was ready.  
"Neko Punch!" She hit him so hard in the face that he flew backwards into the Kaiser which caused him to drop Daisuke's Digivice and D-Terminal.  
"Damn it!" The Kaiser shouted as the items fell down the canyon but were caught mid-air by Miyako on Holsmon.  
"Thank you!" She said. The Kaiser was now fed up with everything.  
"Out of my way!" He pulled out his whip and swung it at Tailmon which wrapped around her head and he threw her over the side, though she would recover and get down safely. "Come out, Snimon! Mojyamon! Drimogemon!" He called out for his forces.

The Chosen Children regrouped at the bottom of the canyon and looked forward at the assault coming their way.  
"That Digimon Kaiser…!" Daisuke growled.  
"Here." Miyako handed him his recovered gear.  
"Oh, thank you! Alright, counterattack!" Daisuke ordered V-mon.  
"Actually…" Koushiro stopped him. "Let us handle it. Digmon, take care of Drimogemon. Holsmon, go after Snimon. ForceBeemon, let's get Mojyamon." All three Armor Digimon nodded.  
"Miyako-san, hold on tight!" Holsmon advised.  
"Okay!" The two of them took to the skies to deal with Snimon.  
"Let's break those Evil Rings so the Digimon will return to normal!" ForceBeemon said. Digmon and Drimogemon began drilling deep in to the earth in order to fight each other underground.

"Icicle Rod!" Mojyamon threw a rod of ice straight at ForceBeemon but he merely zipped out of the way. He was so fast that Mojyamon didn't even see him until he was suddenly right in front of him.  
"Swarm Strike!" A few quick jabs at the Evil Ring on Mojyamon's arm and it was destroyed with ease.  
"Good job, ForceBeemon!" Koushiro praised. In the skies, Snimon used his Shadow Sickle on Holsmon but he performed an aileron roll and dodged the attacks, much to Miyako's discomfort.  
"Mach Impulse!" The winged edges of Holsmon's armor glowed red and fired two beams of energy towards the Evil Ring which destroyed it.  
"You did it, Holsmon!" Miyako cheered. In the underground, Drimogemon dug deep but soon found himself being faced down by Digmon.  
"Gold Rush!" All five drills on Digmon launched out and exploded all around the mole which destroyed the Evil Ring.

Back in his lair, the Kaiser was chuckling. He may have lost once more but it was hardly a setback for him.  
"Not bad… It wouldn't be fun otherwise. Now, who to play with next?"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"Are you alright?" V-mon asked the three freed Digimon. "Sorry, but we had no choice."  
"No, that pain is nothing compared to being the Digimon Kaiser's slave." Mojyamon explained as the three Digimon turned around and walked away towards the sunset.  
"That Digimon Kaiser…!" Daisuke sounded very upset. "I'm getting pissed off already!"  
"So, Iori? Feel like you're worth to be one of us now?" Koushiro asked. I nodded.  
"Yes. I think so. Sorry for what I said earlier, Armadimon, I was referring more to myself about being unworthy." I apologized.  
"It's okay! I'm just glad to finally be your Digimon partner, dagyaa!"  
"Hey, we should probably get going. It's gonna be way past sundown by the time we get back to the Real World." Takeru reminded us.  
"Yeah, let's go home." Hikari added and we all headed on our way back home, proud of what we had accomplished today.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Where the hell are they?" I muttered as I checked the time to see it was almost seven o'clock. The screen suddenly began to glow and I got out of the way as everyone came back in a tumble. "Everyone okay?" I asked.  
"Yeah…" they all muttered. I soon noticed that there were some unwelcomed guests with them.  
"Wait, you brought the Digimon with you!?" I could see there was Patamon and Tailmon but the three others I didn't really recognize. A smaller version of V-mon was lying on Daisuke's head, there was a small round bird with pink feathers and one red feather on its head that Miyako was now cheerful rubbing against her cheek and Iori was staring at a pale round Digimon with two branchia growing out of the side of its head. I'd later find out their names were in order Chibimon, Poromon, and Upamon.  
"We didn't mean to bring them, they just followed us." Iori explained. "But why did they change like that?"  
"They must have reverted to the Baby forms." Hikari explained.  
"But we didn't change…" Patamon noticed.  
"We might have a better constitution then they do." Tailmon suggested.  
"Hey, wait a second? Where's Tentomon?" Koushiro asked as he was still buried under the pile.  
"Koushiro-han! I'm going to stick around and try to find out more on the Digimon Kaiser!" Tentomon informed over the screen.  
"Alright, be careful, Tentomon. Oh, g-guys… I'm sorry, but… Please hurry up and get off me!" Koushiro shouted. I had to chuckle. Never a real dull moment when the Digimon are around.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Hey, Onii-san! Onii-san! Open the door!" A young raven haired boy with blue eyes and hair that went down to his neck, though in the front as it was shorter in the back, knocked on the door to a bedroom. The door soon opened up to reveal a slightly taller boy with the same hair color and eyes though he was wearing glasses and had his hair more closely trimmed down.  
"What is it?" The older boy asked.  
"Mom said she was working late tonight, so she left us dinner. I brought it for you considering I know you haven't eaten yet." The older boy looked down at the trey of food that was being held and took it from his younger sibling.  
"Thanks." He then closed the door behind him.  
"Always in his books…" The younger brother muttered as he went back to his room. Inside the older sibling's room, it was dark with the only light being illuminated by the computer screen.

Osamu Ichijouji sat back down and begun planning his next move as the Digimon Kaiser…

* * *

Yeah... I think that's what TVTropes would refer to as a 'Wham Line'.

Yep, I'm totally going this route. It's always been an idea I've rarely seen used or at least fleshed in a long story (like Hikari being with the gang from Day 1). So this story will still be much of the same but it's going to be a fairly different journey. I think you'll all like it... I hope. *Fingers crossed*

See you all next time... I've got a few finals to take care of.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank.**_ _ **"**_


	5. The Purist Traits!

Well, judging by some of your reactions on our last chapter, my twist seemed to have got some of you.

Didn't get any new followers or faves but did get a bunch of reviews.

To **agumonfan7** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96** , thanks for the reviews.  
Oh, and to answer the last two reviews.  
First to **God of the Challenge** , *Cue Beavis and Butthead snickering.*  
And to **DigimonAT0318** , your instincts serve you well. Bury your feelings deep down. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.

And now that I've quoted _**Return of the Jedi**_ , let's get on with the story.

* * *

 **Chapter 4: The Purist Traits! Pegasmon and Nefertimon!**

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 11th, 2002. 1443 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

Today was definitely going to be different that it had been the previous three days. For one, none of the older Chosen Children were going to come with us to the Digital World, so we were technically on our own. Two, today would be the first true day all three of the new Chosen Children would work together, considering that Daisuke and V-mon didn't actually do much fighting and Iori found Armadimon later in the day. And the third thing was that all of our Digimon were in the Real World and waiting for us in the computer lab… at least I hope so. Gods help us if they were found out.

"Daisuke?" A small voice called out from the computer lab as we were about to open the door. That must have been Chibimon and sounds like they hadn't been found out.  
"You there?" Daisuke called out as he opened the door.  
"Daisuke!" The Baby Digimon jumped out and leapt into his arms.  
"Hey, is everyone alright?"  
"Where's Miyako-san?" asked Poromon.  
"Is Iori coming?" Upamon also wondered.  
"Don't worry, they'll be here soon." Hikari told them. Not a moment too soon, we could hear running in the halls.  
"Oh, here they are!" Daisuke said.  
"Sorry, I'm late! I brought something!" Miyako ran in carrying a bag of snacks.

"Oh, right, you mentioned that your family runs a convenience store." I remembered where she probably got the food from.  
"That must be great… you can have snacks whenever you want, for free!" assumed Daisuke.  
"Here." She placed the bag on the floor for the Digimon. "Not really… sometimes I have to help out. It's hard work." She explained. Daisuke didn't look convinced about that.  
"What's this?" Chibimon questioned the food in front of him.  
"Can we eat it?" Poromon wondered.  
"Yeah, we can. And it's good!" Patamon informed them as he grabbed a packet of Chu-chu jelly and started to slurp it down before he fell on his back. I swear, he's gotten more adorable. Hard to believe he can be so devastating to dark forces.  
"Let me try, dagyaa!" Upamon jumped into the bag and got a packet too. "It's great! It's really, really great!" He hopped around.  
"Yummy!" Chibimon began chewing on a chocolate bar. Poromon decided to try as well and all of a sudden, he began shouting and flapping across the room. I guess he liked it. He flew back and bumped into the other two Baby Digimon and they all laughed. All the while, Tailmon looked like she was not amused in the slightest.  
"I'm worried just thinking of our future…" She sighed.

"By the way, is the gate open?" Daisuke asked Miyako.  
"Hold on!" She ran over to the computer to check. "It's open!"  
"Alright, let's go!"  
"Wait a second! Iori-kun isn't here yet…" Hikari stopped him.  
"Iori? What is he waiting for?"  
"When I saw him in the classroom, he said he wouldn't leave until he finished his lunch."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

As Hikari said, Iori was still in the classroom with his trey in front of him, pushing a cherry tomato on it back and forth with his fork.  
"You don't have to eat everything." Iori's teacher told him.  
"No, we shouldn't waste food. That's what my late father always said."  
"Ah, I see…" Iori finally cut the tomato in half and finally chew it down before he left the room.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"What's with him…?" Daisuke wondered about Iori.  
"Let's watch some TV while we wait." suggested Miyako.  
"Sure, what's on?" Hikari asked. Miyako found the remote to the TV behind us and turned on the TV. The station was on the local news and it looks like it was in the middle of a report.  
"A computer programming contest was held the other day." The female reporter said. "We interviewed our winner, prodigy Ichijouji Osamu." The report showed a raven haired boy wearing glasses who was just a few years older than us.  
"I never thought someone like me could win… it was a surprise." He sounds very humble.  
"Also, we spoke to one of the judges, Professor Shotsuki of Meiji University." The screen cut to a fairly older man with a large mustache. At the same time, Iori showed up as I looked over to see him opening the door to the lab.  
"I'm really impressed… I couldn't believe that program was made by someone so young. He's certainly a genius, no doubt." The professor said.  
"The other day he played chess against twenty adults." Wait, did he just play or beat them… I'm guessing he probably beat them. "He is truly a prodigy when it comes to computers and schoolwork." Impressive.

"Of course… he's not the only one out there, as he's the older brother to the other half of the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi, Ichijouji Ken." The screen now showed a boy our age that looked very much like him, minus the glasses. "Young Ken is almost equal in terms of intelligence with his older brother, but he'd rather excel in other areas like being a black belt in judo and an ace soccer star." The screen showed Ken making an amazing goal.  
"That was a great shot…" Even Daisuke was impressed.  
"Well, Osamu was always better when it came to school or computers, I'll never truly take that from him, so that's why I'm the more athletic one of us." Ken told the reporter. The screen then cut to the reporter once more with a couple behind her.  
"Now we'll talk with the parents of these two geniuses, Ichijouji Kaito and Ruki. Surely there must be a special way to raise not only one but two clever boys?"  
"No, we didn't really do anything special…" Their mother explained.  
"It was like the ugly duck laying the golden egg. I'm even more surprised that it happened twice." Their father said as he embarrassingly rubbed the back of his head.

"It's hard to believe that people like the Ichijouji brothers exist." Iori spoke up.  
"Huh? When did you get there?" Hikari asked as the three of them finally realized that Iori was here.  
"Ah, just now."  
"But it's amazing… they really are geniuses." I admitted. Miyako soon turned off the TV and had a sour look on her face.  
"I can write some programs, too!" Sounds like Miyako was jealous of the older Ichijouji sibling.  
"What about his brother, the sports star?" Daisuke questioned.  
"He's better… as long as he doesn't go near a computer." Some of us chuckled upon hearing that.

"Hikari…" Tailmon got our attention.  
"I wonder how the Digital World is…" Patamon said.  
"Right, we can go now that Iori-kun is here." I remembered. The screen slowly began to light up, indicating that we were all set to go.  
"The gate to the Digital World is open." Miyako informed.  
"Alright. Time to go." declared Daisuke.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A few hours prior, Osamu Ichijouji was walking the streets of the Tamachi District. He had been let out of his classes earlier, because his own teachers admitted that he was better at the subjects he was being taught then them. He stopped near a store when a stray puppy was licking at his shoes.  
"You're making my shoes dirty." He darkly stated to the puppy. To most of the world, he was a humble genius, but it was a mask he wore that hid the cruel Digimon Kaiser. That was made apparent when he kicked the puppy that ran off yapping in fear. He merely chuckled at the pain that he had caused.

It was right around one o'clock when he returned back to his home. His mother was making her final preparations as she was planning to head to her job.  
"Osamu-chan, I have to go to work soon… Your brother called and said he had some things to do after school so he won't be home until later, but I'm leaving the both of you something to eat." She placed down a tray of food. Osamu said nothing as he looked at it before walking back into his room. "Osamu-chan, I know you're busy studying…" He ignored her words and locked the door behind him. Today was another day for conquest.

An Elecmon was running for his life as the Kaiser was pursuing him. He quickly hid in the bush as he could hear the Kaiser's boots approaching.  
"I know you're there, come out!" The Elecmon decided to make a break for it and ran from the bush; all the while the Kaiser gained a sick grin. "You're running away? Fun…" He put his finger to his mouth and whistled. A controlled Tuskmon walked up to him. "Give me a ride and follow him!" The Kaiser ordered, though it's not as if the Tuskmon could refuse now that he was a servant of the Kaiser. The Elecmon ran as fast as its small body could take it but the Tuskmon was fast approaching. It wouldn't be long before this quick game of cat and mouse would be over. As Tuskmon got closer, the Kaiser took out his whip and swung it, striking the terrified Digimon in the back. "Run… run…" The terror and suffering that the Kaiser was causing was like fine wine to him. He savored and wanted it.

The Elecmon was captured but it wasn't given an Evil Ring. No, it was going to be suffering in pain before he would be made the Kaiser's servant. In much of his controlled territory, the Kaiser had established prison complexes that he would hold his captives in. Sometimes these places would hold powerful Digimon that needed to be deployed to conquer more territory or to crush any resistance. Other times like today, it was to hold weaker ones that he would use to fight one another. It was like ancient Rome with the gladiators and the Kaiser loved it.

The Kaiser kicked the newly caught Elecmon into a cell.  
"Another one got caught…" A trio of Gotsumon was over watching the prison. In fact, they may have been a bit too close, but they didn't have much of a choice as their homes were now deep in the territory of the Kaiser, and the idea of 'being closer to the danger, the further from harm' did seem like it rang true.  
"Guys, when he catches a Digimon and puts a ring on him, he changes completely…"  
"Let's get out of here!"  
"But what about our friends?"  
"But…" They watched as the Kaiser took a seat in a stone throne that over looked the prison pit. A controlled Elecmon charged forward towards the newly captured Elecmon and dragged him out of the cell when the gate bars were raised. The controlled Elecmon savagely attacked without mercy upon its fellow Digimon.

"After they're caught, he makes friends fight each other until one falls." The Gotsumon muttered to each other.  
"And he has fun watching it… what a scary guy!" Unfortunately, one of the Gotsumon snapped a tree branch which suddenly alerted the Kaiser of their presence. He swung his whip and knocked down two of them but the one who wasn't hit managed to escape. The Kaiser cared not for the escapee, he still had two Gotsumon he could have fun with and eventually the fleeing Digimon would be caught. A few minutes later, the two captured Gotsumon would have rings on them and would charge each other in vicious combat that would eventually devolved into them repeatedly head-butting each other.  
"And they used to be friends…" The surviving Gotsumon had tears in his eyes as he saw his friends savagely assault each other. All the while, Monodramon looked to the Kaiser with a sad look on his face.  
"Osamu-chan, is this what makes you happy?" The Dark Digivice in the Kaiser's hands soon began to beep indicating that the Chosen Children were nearby.  
"Them again… what a pain…"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

When we returned to the Digital World, the first thing we noticed was that all the Baby-Level Digimon were now back to their Child forms.  
"Huh? They're back to normal!" Iori was surprised by this.  
"When we're in the Digital World, we go back to normal, dagyaa!" Armadimon informed. Suddenly, we heard out Digivices beginning to chirp.  
"What's this?" I questioned.  
"It's a Digimental!" Iori exclaimed.  
"A Digimental?" V-mon sounded excited about the prospect of finding another one.  
"There's a Digimental nearby!"  
"So there are more Digimentals?" Daisuke asked.  
"What does it mean?" Miyako wondered.  
"Whatever it means, let's look for it anyways!" I told them.  
"Alright, let's do it!" Daisuke took the lead.

We walked for a good ten minutes but there was still no sight of what we were looking for.  
"Where is it?" Miyako moaned.  
"It should be around here…" Iori believed.  
"What kind of Digimon will be born this time?" wondered Takeru.  
"No idea, dagyaa!" Armadimon told him.  
"But does that mean there are other Chosen Children?" I asked.  
"That… we don't know." Hawkmon said.  
"It could be ours." suggested Tailmon.  
"That's right; we may be able to Armor-Evolve." Patamon kept his spirits up. It is true, if Taichi, Sora, and Koushiro can Armor-Evolve, then perhaps we can too. Though is it by ourselves or does another Chosen Child have to help us?  
"It's over here." Daisuke pointed towards where the Digimental is believed to be.

"What are you doing?" All of us suddenly stopped as we heard that voice. We turned to see a holographic projection of the Kaiser staring at us.  
"There he is!" Miyako shouted.  
"This is for yesterday, you bastard!" Daisuke clearly didn't tell it was a hologram and punched right through air and fell to the ground.  
"It's a hologram! It's not real!" Takeru told him.  
"Save your strength for the real one." I advised.  
"How can foolish humans like you come in and out of this world as you please?" The Kaiser questioned. We were all perplexed by the question.  
"How…?" Iori muttered as we all looked to each other.  
"Only those who are chosen should be able to enter this world."  
"Then, why are you here!?" Daisuke pulled himself off the ground.  
"That's because I'm a Chosen Child." We were taken aback by that answer.  
"A Chosen Child?" Takeru exclaimed.  
"You too?" I said. I couldn't believe that. No Chosen Child would be as cruel and monstrous as this person has been.  
"Anyway, your existence here doesn't feel right to me. It's like we're on the same level." The Kaiser explained.  
"And what's the problem with being on the same level!?" Daisuke demanded an answer but the hologram faded away.

The ground suddenly rumbled as we turned around to see a large red dinosaur Digimon behind us. If I remember the stories my brothers told me about their adventures in the Digital World before I showed up, then I think that's a Tyranomon staring us down. And standing right on the shoulder of the controlled Digimon was the Kaiser in the flesh.  
"What the!?" Daisuke was shocked by this sudden appearance while Takeru got right in front of me and tried to shield me.  
"A Chosen Child should be a perfect human like me! Not like you!" The Kaiser yelled.  
"A perfect human!?"  
"Who do you think you are?" Takeru angrily questioned. Clearly someone with one heck of an ego and superiority complex, that's who. I wonder if he'll soon think himself God or something.  
"This Digital World belongs to me!" declared the Kaiser. "Leave, now!"  
"What's that about?" Miyako wondered.  
"If you interrupt my game, I'll have to punish you. Go, Tyranomon!"  
"Look out!" I shouted as we all ran from his powerful Fire Breath attack.

"What are you doing!?" Daisuke demanded. Trying to kill us is what I think he's trying to do Daisuke. The Kaiser gave him no answer so V-mon started to tug on Daisuke's pants.  
"Let's go, Daisuke!"  
"Alright! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" The Kaiser jumped off of the dinosaur and landed on the ground, probably to avoid getting caught up in the fight.  
"Do you think the same trick will work twice? That's why I can't stand stupid people like you." The Kaiser said.  
"You really piss me off!" Daisuke cried.  
"Tyranomon." The Tyranomon charged forward and swiped his claw that sent Fladramon flying through the air, but he managed to recover and bounce back off of a tree.  
"That's nothing!" He shouted. "Knuckle Fire!" Fladramon's claws burst into flames before it was launched forward in a flaming projectile. The Kaiser was fairly confident as he smiled. And for good reason as the Tyranomon just used his tail to stop the attack.  
"What? Dammit!" Daisuke was shocked by the result.

"Miyako-san!" Hawkmon was looking for the word to evolve.  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!" Miyako hopped on Holsmon's back and flew straight towards the rampaging Digimon, all the while avoiding its fire.  
"Red Sun!" The attack hit the Tyranomon in the chest and tipped him over.  
"Do you think you have an advantage in numbers?" The Kaiser questioned. "Get out, my slaves!"  
"What?" Daisuke exclaimed as we turned to see four more controlled Tyranomon coming out of the tree line and completely surrounding us.  
"There are five of them!" Miyako observed.  
"Armadimon, I'm counting on you!" Iori told his partner.  
"Leave it to me, dagyaa!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"

"Why can't we evolve!?" "We want to fight too!" Both Tailmon and Patamon shouted at the Kaiser.  
"As long as I have this Dark Digivice, you won't be able to evolve." The Kaiser reminded. "My slaves, concentrate your attacks on those two!" My heart sank as he gave that order.  
"What!?" Takeru exclaimed in shock. Two Tyranomon launched their attacks at Tailmon and Patamon who quickly ran or flew forward to avoid the attacks that exploded behind them. However, they would find themselves running into the shadow of another Tyranomon who swung his arm and sent Tailmon and Patamon flying into a tree where they collided with it painfully.  
"We're just a burden like this!" Patamon groaned in pain.  
"It's so frustrating!" Tailmon expressed her anger through the pain. They quickly got back up and ran again just to avoid being stomped on by the same Tyranomon. They ran right into the line of fire of two more Tyranomon who used their Fire Breath and just barely escaped. This is just getting to be too much for me to take!

Thankfully, Digmon revealed himself from the dust of that last explosion and drew the attention away from pretty beaten up Digimon.  
"Fight me now, dagyaa!"  
"That's not fair, Digimon Kaiser!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Fair? Where does it say that I have to play fair with you? If that's the case, then make it fair for me and not having this Armor-Evolution work around that you insects have discovered. I'll play the way I want to play!" The Kaiser responded.  
"If this keeps us, we'll get nowhere." Iori noticed. "Let's take a chance with that Digimental!" He suggested.  
"But we don't know whose Digimental it is!" Miyako reminded.  
"We don't have any other choices! Let's just try it! Takeru, Hikari-chan! Go with Iori! Miyako, let's draw these overgrown lizards away from them!" Daisuke ordered. Miyako nodded while Iori took off in the direction of where the Digivice was detecting the Digimentals.

"Tailmon, we're going to look for that Digimental!" I told her.  
"Patamon, this way!" Takeru said. Both Digimon got back up once more and ran right after us as we tried to catch up with Iori.  
"We'll take care of this, dagyaa!" Digmon assured us.  
"Udjat Gaze!" "Knuckle Fire!" "Big Crack!" When Digmon said that attack, the whole ground began to rumble. Hopefully, they would be able to keep the Kaiser distracted or even better, defeat him.  
"Don't let them get away! Go!" The Kaiser ordered, so it was clear he was still intent on his sadistic action. We looked behind as we picked up the speed and saw that one of the five Tyranomon was still pursing us, and it wasn't the one the Kaiser was riding, so at least we might be able to get away if we can just outsmart the controlled Digimon.  
"Air Shot!" Patamon fired his attack but it didn't do much but distract the dinosaur for a moment.  
"Let's get out of here!" Tailmon tried to tell him. We ran for as long as we could but exhaustion was slowly beginning to set in. We need to escape now, or we'd be goners. To our luck, there as a cave up ahead.  
"Into that cave!" Iori shouted and we followed him in there.

We kept quiet and caught our breath while the ground rumbled. We could see outside the Tyranomon walking by which meant that we had managed to make him lose us. But the problem remained that Daisuke and Miyako were fighting for their lives out there and we were more or less pinned in this cave. As we were heavily breathing from our exhaustion, Iori seemed to notice something deeper in the cave.  
"Those are…" He pointed out. I looked over and saw two shining objects further away.  
"Digimentals?" I finished his sentence. I think we may have finally found them.  
"Then, if we move those Digimentals, new Digimon will be born?" Takeru guessed.  
"But there are no more Chosen Children… right?" I asked Takeru. He shrugged his shoulders.  
"Well, only three of those new Digivices came out of the computer so… Look, there's nothing we can do." We walked up to them and saw that the yellow-orange one and the silver one both had familiar symbols on them.  
"That's… the Crest of Light… And the other one is the Crest of Hope, Takeru-kun!"  
"You're right!"

"Well, if there are no more Chosen Children… then is it possible that those are Takeru and Hikari's Digimentals?" Tailmon suggested. Now, that she mentions that… it is possible. After all, Taichi, Sora, and Koushiro didn't get new Digimon when they got their Digimentals, but then again, they had Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori help them pull it out.  
"Takeru, try lifting that Digimental!" Patamon snapped us out of our thoughts.  
"But…" Takeru tried to argue.  
"Don't hesitate, just try it!" Tailmon exclaimed.  
"Are you sure?" I asked. "What if…"  
"No 'what ifs' just do it!"  
"Okay." Takeru relented.

We walked up and suddenly both the Digimentals and our Digivices began to glow.  
"The Digivice is glowing!" Takeru shouted. We looked to each other and nodded as we walked up and pulled on the Digimentals. There was almost no resistance as they were lifted easily and they felt light as a feather in my hands at least. We then looked to our Digivices and saw them turning into the new ones. Takeru's had a green colored side while mine was pink.  
"No doubt about it now, these are our Digimentals." I admitted.  
"Then give us the word!" Patamon cried. We nodded to our Digimon.  
"Digimental Up!" We yelled.  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"

"Patamon and Tailmon Armor-Evolved…" Iori was practically dumbfounded by this turn of events. Our Digimon looked quite impressive. Pegasmon was an actual pegasus with large golden wings while Nefertimon looked like a larger Tailmon that had merged with the Sphinx as she had an Egyptian like mask over her face.  
"They were ours! They were our Digimentals, Nefertimon!" I hugged her.  
"Great, Hikari! Now we can fight too!" Nefertimon was glad as well.  
"Takeru!" Pegasmon tried to say something but Takeru probably already knew what he was going to say.  
"Yeah. We're not a burden anymore."  
"Come on! Let's go help Daisuke-san and Miyako-san!" Iori reminded us. We got out of the cave and took to the skies.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Things were looking bad for Daisuke and Miyako. The Digimon were just not as experienced in fighting yet and were now all back in Child-Levels while the five Tyranomon had the kids backed up against the wall, or rather, they were now standing on the edge of a large cliff drop.  
"Are you giving up already?" The Kaiser asked.  
"What?" Daisuke questioned.  
"Look behind you. There's nowhere left to run. Now, realize you've been beaten and surrender to me. I'll be quite merciful in your punishments. Just leave your Digivices and Digimon and never return to my world again."  
"Never!" Daisuke growled.  
"Ah, following the Bushido Code I see? Brave… but quite stupid. Tyranomon!" The dinosaurs got ready to attack once more but they were all unaware of what was behind them.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We could see up heard that Daisuke and Miyako were in serious trouble as they were now pinned by a cliff and attacking Digimon… boy, talk about déjà vu.  
"Daisuke-san!" Iori, who was riding with me, shouted. We landed behind the five Tyranomon and hopped off to let our Digimon go to work. The Kaiser also followed suit and hopped off his Tyranomon.  
"It's just a temporary evolution. You think you can use that against me all the time? You'll just keep using the same Digimon while I have at my disposal a wide range to counter your every move. Attack!" The Kaiser ordered his Tyranomon to attack. Pegasmon and Nefertimon jumped out of the way and flew up. The gauntlets on their front feet began to glow and they flew in a figure 8 formation.  
"Sanctuary Bind!" Both Digimon shouted as a band of light wrapped around the five dinosaurs and bound them together.  
"Needle Rain!" The hairs on Pegusmon's head shot forward in a wave of tiny projectiles that caused significant damage to the controlled Digimon.  
"Nile Jewelry!" Multiple jewels shot out of Nefertimon's front gauntlets which also hit the Tyranomon. Both attacks were utterly devastating and caused the Evil Rings to be destroyed, freeing all of the Tyranomon from the Kaiser's control.

"The rings are gone!" Miyako cheered. We soon turned our attention to the Kaiser who was now in the position Daisuke and Miyako were in moments ago; standing on the edge of the cliff.  
"Now, how's about you surrender?" Daisuke asked. The Kaiser looked smug.  
"You insects may think you have me, but I assure you, I have many tricks up my sleeves." Our eyes widened as he took a step back and fell off the cliff, only for a Devidramon to fly up and away from us with the Kaiser on its back.  
"Figures he'd have an escape route." I muttered. We watched as the Tyranomon all walked away with Hikari taking a photo of them with her digital camera.

When we got back to the Real World, she had a bit of a different tone.  
"I can't forgive that kid! Going after those who can't evolve…!" She shouted.  
"Exactly! I'll beat him to a pulp!" Daisuke declared.  
"Don't you agree, Takeru-kun?" Looks like Daisuke didn't like that question.  
"Of course! I can't believe he's a human like us." I answered Hikari's question. "And he thinks the Digital World belongs to him… he's crazy!" I looked back to see the Baby Digimon eating the snacks again while Tailmon looked exactly like she did before.  
"By the way, our Digimentals seem to be different." Iori spoke up.  
"What do you mean?" Daisuke asked.  
"Daisuke-san, Miyako-san and me, we all met our Digimon through the Digimentals, but… It was different for Takeru-san and Hikari-san. New Digimon weren't born, but their Digimon became able to Armor-Evolve."  
"Well, so were Taichi-san, Sora-san and Izumi-senpai's Digimon." Miyako reminded.  
"Yes, but Takeru-san and Hikari-san didn't need any help to pull out the Digimentals."  
"That was actually surprising." I said.  
"But I was really happy." admitted Hikari.

"I can't stand that guy!" Miyako huffed.  
"The Digimon Kaiser, right?" Iori was trying to make sure he knew what Miyako was talking about. "I wonder who he is…"  
"Whoever he is, what he's doing is unforgivable!" Daisuke cried in anger. We all nodded with him.  
 _"_ _But I can't bring myself to hurt other people…"_ Iori thought.  
"This is kinda like an adventure game!" Miyako smiled.  
"Hey, I thought you were afraid!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Who cares?" She kneeled down and smiled at the Baby Digimon. I don't know what the future holds for us in this fight against the Kaiser. But at the very least, now Hikari and I can help in the fight too.

And I'll do whatever it takes to stop the Kaiser…

* * *

Well, that was that chapter. I think you're going to like the next.

Take care everyone.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	6. Kind and Honorable!

Sorry, I took a while with this one. Had a final yesterday that took some time, and then my attention was turned to Disney's Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris. Man, they need to make a film about that!

Shout out to **GreenD109** for the fave and follow.

As for reviews, thank you **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96** for your kind words, or in Green's case, question.

Anyways, I think it's time I start putting some of my cards on the table.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Kind and Honorable! Tetermon and Waibanmon!**

 _New Remagen, Digital World. April 12th, 2002. 1436 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Fear and worry. That was the atmosphere that could be used to describe the town. For the past couple of days, convoys of refugee Digimon were arriving in the town. They were all desperate to try and escape the Kaiser who had conquered their homes. However, the Kaiser's reach was now just hovering over the town. There was only one choice for all that were now there: evacuate once more. Guilmon was currently in the town organizing the evacuation and trying to keep things organized and calm. The last thing he and many other Digimon wanted was a full on panic.

"Gather what you can carry! But make it just the essentials! We need to leave now before the Kaiser comes. Escape to the southwest, you'll get further away from the Kaiser's territory." Guilmon announced to the escaping refugees.  
"What does it matter? The Digimon Kaiser will conquer everything anyway." A tired Gazimon muttered. Guilmon quickly found the defeatist Digimon and took him aside.  
"Listen, I know you're tired and that things look bleak, but take it from me… Never give up until it's truly over. Right now, there are Digimon out there that are fighting the Kaiser and beating him. And their strength grows every single day. The Kaiser is not invincible, he will be defeated. But right now, we escape so we can return one day." It seems like that little pep talk had an effect on the Gazimon as he regained his fortitude and nodded at Guilmon's words.

"Guilmon!" A Floramon ran up to Guilmon, panting as she was out of breath.  
"What's wrong?"  
"They're coming! Large amounts of Digimon under the Kaiser's control are coming to the town!" She shouted.  
"Hold on, like right now?"  
"Well, not yet, I didn't get a great look but a large group of Digimon will be coming around those hills on the main road and crossing the bridge."  
"Any flying or swimming Digimon with that force?"  
"I couldn't really tell, but I don't think so. They'll be here in a few hours."  
"And we're only just evacuating… By the time we finish, they'll be on top of us, making everything we've done all for naught." Guilmon quietly said to himself. He soon began running away from the town.  
"Wait, where are you going?!"  
"If you said there's still time, then I'm going to get us some help to try to slow down the Kaiser!" Guilmon soon ran over to a nearby hill where a lone TV stood on. "Alright, if this worked for Agumon back on Monday, then it should work for me. Come on, Ross… pick up!"

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 12th, 2002. 1442 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

I left class a bit early today. Thankfully, it was my history class and history was always my strongest subject so I felt I wasn't missing too much. Besides, I already read ahead in our textbook so there wasn't going to be much of a surprise waiting for me. Under normal circumstances, I would've been heading down towards the station and heading back to Yokohama and spend the weekend with Dad. That all changed when we got caught up in a whole new adventure. Hikari was keeping both Taichi and I well informed about what was going on. It was nice to hear that Tailmon and Patamon could Armor-Evolve now. That was going to be helpful in our fight against the Kaiser. However, the problem was that we were just annoying him right now; we were doing nothing in the way of truly giving him misery or breaking his power. I certainly hope Koushiro or someone can figure out something, we need to truly put the hurt on the Kaiser.

I finally reached the elementary school where it looked like most of the students were being let out of class. I walked my way through the crowd until I finally got upstairs to the computer room, and sure enough, there were the others all gather around the computer with their Digimon.  
"Already going somewhere?" I questioned, though I had a bit of a smirk on my face.  
"Ross-chan!" Hikari exclaimed.  
"I take it you guys were about to head out."  
"Yes, we were. Is anyone else coming?" Takeru asked.  
"Not that I know of; looks like you're stuck with me today." Both Hikari and Takeru chuckled at that joke but none of the new kids laughed. Its fine, they just don't know me that well.  
"Well, if we're all done talking, then let's get going!" Daisuke certainly is gung-ho about all this.  
"Slow it down there, Daisuke, we don't even know where we going today." Miyako brought him back to reality.  
"Don't know where? I thought we were going to the Digital World?"  
"I think she meant, where in the Digital World are we going, Daisuke-san." Iori explained.  
"Does it matter? Just so long as we're showing up that creep, anywhere is fine!" I nodded at Daisuke's statement.  
"I agree with Daisuke-kun." Never thought I'd say that. "Right now we don't have an overall plan on combating the Digimon Kaiser, so all we can really do now is just give him a headache until we-"

I was suddenly interrupted when all of our Digivices began to beep. We all pulled them out and saw that it was picking up something.  
"I haven't seen that feature for some time." I muttered. The feature was that of a Digivice tracker, the same feature we were using when Taichi and I were trying to find the others after returning back from Real World and then when we were trying to look for the ninth Chosen Child, unaware it was Hikari the whole time.  
"What is this?" Iori asked.  
"It's a tracker. We used it to try to find each other back in our previous adventures." Takeru explained.  
"Is it Taichi-san or one of the others?" Daisuke assumed.  
"No, it doesn't match their colors." Miyako told him. Colors? On mine, I just see six red dots next to each other and one outside the building.  
"Hikari, can I see your Digivice?" I asked her.  
"Here you go, Ross-chan." She handed me hers and I looked to see on the screen that it was different than mine. On hers, there were seven dots; six of them were beside each other which I assumed they were us. However, the dots were different. There was a blue, yellow, green, pink, and red dot that were beside a tan dot. Looks like these new Digivices are also color coded with the tracking system.

"Whoever this is, they're coming into the building." I said.  
"Do you think it might be a new Chosen Child?" Tailmon suggested. We all quickly looked towards her.  
"Do you think it's possible?" Hikari wondered.  
"I thought there was only three Digivices that came out of the computer." Patamon recalled what he had been told.  
"Well, it was but…" Takeru couldn't finish his answer.  
"Come on, let's go check it out!" Daisuke was first out the door. We all followed him out of the room and headed downstairs. We all checked our Digivices and saw that we were getting closer to the mysterious signal.  
"It's just right around this corner." Iori informed.  
"It could just be one of the others…" Miyako believed.  
"Well, we'll find out right… about… now!" Daisuke jumped the corner.

And he suddenly found himself pinned up against the wall by a familiar looking raven-haired boy wearing the all grey Tamachi Elementary School uniform.  
"Ichijouji Ken?" I said in surprise.  
"McGlathery Ross?" He responded.  
"It is you. This is a surprise."  
"No, the surprise is that fact that you two seem to know each other. Oh, by the way, can you let go of me!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Oh, sorry!" Ken let go of him. "It's just you jumped the corner and surprised me and that whole judo training just flipped like a switch." He explained.  
"Thank you." Daisuke dusted himself off. "Now can someone explain to me what's going on!?"  
"Well, I was hoping you could explain." Ken pointed towards my Digivice. "Because that looks familiar." He opened his palm to reveal a Digivice. Almost everyone's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.  
"A Digivice!" We all shouted.

We all went back up to the computer lab where we could have a bit more privacy and could explain everything to each other.  
"I just can't believe one of the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi is actually a Chosen Child like us." Iori was surprised by this development.  
"'Chosen Child?' Is that what we're called?" Ken questioned. We all nodded.  
"Can't say I imagined this when I woke up this morning." Miyako said.  
"So I must ask the question, well, actually two questions, but how exactly did know Ross-san, and how exactly do you have a Digivice?" Takeru asked.  
"Well, I can help answer that first question." I spoke up. "When was the last time we met? July 27th, 2000?" Ken nodded.  
"I probably wouldn't be alive if you weren't there." He informed to the surprise of everyone.  
"What does that mean!?" exclaimed Daisuke.

"Let me explain." I began. "See, my friend Takeo told me about this sushi place in Tamachi that he claimed was the best in the city. Long story short about that is I've never been back there. Anyways, that day of the 27th, Taichi and I were on our way to that place when we came across street crossing that both you and your brother were at."  
"Yeah, I can't fully remember what we were doing that day, but I do remember that I wanted to get across the street really fast." Ken added.  
"Which is where I came in; I saw how anxious he was and grabbed him telling him to look both ways before crossing. I just thought maybe he needed a refresher or something. Plus, I saw this car from further down the road moving somewhat faster than normal."  
"Turns out that was a good thing, that car, I think that was a Toyota Vista V40, blasted its way across the street. If Ross-san wasn't there, I'd probably be dead."  
"Or your brother would've pulled a Yu Yu Hakusho, either way, I did not want to see a live action repeat of that."  
"By the way, that's the only scene he's seen of that show. He refuses to watch anymore." Hikari quickly explained.  
"Just not my cup of tea." I shrugged. "After that, Taichi and I had lunch with the Ichijouji brothers and that was the last we saw of each other… until today of course."

"Wow, well that explains that, but what about the Digivice?" Miyako asked the more important question.  
"Well, that… well…" Ken was about to explain when his bag suddenly began to shuffle. "Oh, shoot! I forgot!" He went over and opened the bag… and suddenly a green worm Digimon popped out.  
"GAH! Couldn't you have left the zipper open a bit more? The air was really stale in there, Ken-chan!"  
"Sorry, Wormmon." The Digimon soon began to climb up him before he perched himself on Ken's shoulder. "Everyone, this is Wormmon, my Digimon partner."  
"Hello." He bowed his head.  
"Unbelievable." "Your Digimon came to the Real World too?" "You've been to the Digital World?" That was some of the questions that were asked upon that revelation.  
"Well, you see that's the thing… I can't actually remember." Ken nervously admitted.  
"What do you mean?" I wondered.

"Well, you see, my mind is a mess right now. I know that I've been to the Digital World once and I remember Wormmon and that I went on some sort of adventure with him… but that's it. Any other memories of the Digital World in my mind are like a haze that I just can't seem to remember. In fact, let me put it this way. I had no memories of the Digital World only on Sunday. On Monday, I heard a strange beeping noise and found my Digivice in a desk drawer that I could've sworn I used dozens of times. The next thing I know, my computer lights up and Wormmon jumps out and latches on my face, which scared the heck out of me before I suddenly remembered him and the Digital World."  
"Well, I had missed you so much and was just excited to see you again. And I can't remember much either, which is the reason why I haven't been that helpful to Ken-chan." Wormmon sounded disappointed.  
"The only reason why I'm here is because I was trying to find the source of the dot that was on my screen at the start of this week."  
"Well, Onii-chan did go out past Tamachi back on Monday afternoon." Takeru explained.  
"This whole thing is quite confusing." Hikari sighed.

Any more questions that needed to be asked would have to be put on hold as the Digital Gate made a noise and we could see Guilmon on the screen.  
"Guilmon!" I shouted.  
"Ross! Where the hell have you all been!? I've been calling for almost twenty whole minutes!" Guilmon sounded really upset.  
"Sorry, buddy. What's going on?"  
"I need help! The Kaiser is going to be attacking a town that I'm trying to help evacuate." He explained.  
"Alright, hang on, support's coming."  
"Well, we know what we're going do today." Iori muttered.  
"Come on, there are Digimon counting on us! Let's move!" I shouted as I held my Digivice up to the screen.  
"You coming too, Ken-kun?" Hikari asked.  
"I suppose I am if I'm one of you. Stay close, Wormmon." Ken told us.  
"Okay, Ken-chan." The whole room lit up as we were sent straight to the Digital World.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

The light died down as the surrounding area changed from a computer lab in a school to a large grassy hill overlooking a town that looked German in nature. This was the Digital World no doubt. I looked over to see the small Digimon from the computer room now looked bigger, though the cat and bat-hamster looked the same.  
"You evolved?" Wormmon questioned.  
"Yep, we do that every time we return to the Digital World." The blue lizard explained.  
"We evolve back to our Child-Levels while everyone's clothes change. Just like yours, dagyaa." The yellow armadillo told me.  
"My clothes?" I looked down to see that my school uniform had now changed. I was wearing a blue long-sleeved zip-up jacket with I think a teal shirt underneath it. I had on a pair of long light grey denim jeans and some black sneakers. "I'm pretty sure this didn't happen last time." Ross patted me on the shoulder.  
"You get used to it." He said.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The arrival of the Chosen Children did not go unnoticed by the Kaiser who was putting the final touches on his next grand advance. The plan was for his forces to march south, run right over the bridge at New Remagen and capture a large amount of Digimon for his ever growing empire. Of course, his plans would have to be accelerated thanks to the arrival of the Chosen Children. As an Evil Ring flew over the unobservant gang, his eyes soon widened when he got a good glimpse of one of the children. However, his surprise was soon replaced with confidence.  
"So… decided to play my game, eh, little brother? I must warn you… you're going to lose. Go, Tankmon!" The Kaiser ordered. At the same time, Monodramon looked to the screen and a glimmer of hope began to build in him.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"This place looks familiar." Takeru looked around as we walked into the village. There were a lot of Digimon running around, gathering whatever they could as they were getting out of town.  
"Should be." Guilmon answered. "This is that same town we found when we were trying to find a way across the river when we all got separated after our fight with Etemon." I had no idea what they were talking about, and it looks like most of the group did too.  
"Aw, now I remember."  
"Hey, they didn't name it New Remagen because of what I said, did they?" Ross asked. Guilmon just shrugged.  
"Look ahead." Guilmon pointed to the river where a large bridge laid. "The Floramon told me that the Kaiser will be coming around the hills along the main road before going across that bridge soon. There's no way we'd be able to get everyone out of the town in time before that happens." As soon as we got towards the edge of the bridge, my Digivice started beeping again.

"Huh? What's this?" I questioned as I saw something beeping up ahead.  
"I think that might be a Digimental!" Miyako exclaimed.  
"A Digimental?" I asked.  
"It's a special item that allows our Digimon to ignore the powers of the Kaiser's Dark Digivice and allow them to Armor-Evolve, rather than just normally evolve." Takeru explained to me.  
"If your Digivice picked it up, then it probably must be yours." Iori said.  
"Yeah, but the only problem is that… the Digimental is on the other side of the river." worried Hikari.  
"So what do we do?" Daisuke wondered. "We probably should try to get that Digimental, but we also should help the Digimon of the town."

"Alright, here's the plan." Ross began. "I'll go with Ken-kun and we'll find that Digimental. The rest of you focus on evacuating this town and then putting the bridge underwater. I assume there isn't any flying or swimming Digimon with this force?" Ross looked to Guilmon.  
"Not that I'm aware of."  
"Good, so if that bridge goes down, the town can evacuate properly and when the Kaiser eventually takes it, all he's got is an empty town."  
"Wait, Ross-chan." Hikari spoke up. "What happens if we take down the bridge and you're still on the other side?"  
"Can't Pegasmon or Nefertimon just fly to us and pick us up?"  
"Oh, right."  
"If that's the plan, then let's hurry while we still have time!" The red bird shouted and the others went on to their jobs while Wormmon and I followed Ross and Guilmon.

"I see. So this Digimon Kaiser wants to subjugate the entire Digital World under his control." I said as Ross finished explaining what was going on by the time we reached the other side of the river.  
"He's scary, Ken-chan. Before I found you, I was trying to keep running away from him." Wormmon explained.  
"Oh, Wormmon, I'm so sorry. I should've been here for you."  
"Don't blame yourself, Ken-kun. It's not like we could've done much anyways before this week. Now, with those Digimentals, we're taking the fight right back to him." Ross assured me.  
"The only problem is that we're only stopping him. Every Digimon we free could just end up being captured once more and we keep just losing ground. Sooner or later, there will be nowhere left to run." Guilmon admitted.  
"We'll find a way to turn back the tide. There's got to be a way." Ross muttered. "Right now, let's just get up this hill." Ross then climbed over a bit of a rocky ledge that was in the way. "Here, give me your hand." I reached up and he pulled me up.

"Okay, if your Digivice is correct, then that Digimental is straight ahead." Ross observed.  
"Hey, why is the ground rumbling?" Wormmon wondered. We all looked at him before Ross seemed to notice something. He pulled out a pair of small binoculars that he was keeping in his front pocket.  
"Oh, dammit. Of course that's what had to be coming. The whole XXX Corps situation.  
"What is it?" I asked him.  
"Take a look." He handed me the binoculars and I looked ahead to the base of the hill. Driving right down the road was five tank-like Digimon.  
"Tankmon. Devastating mechanized Digimon. Their Hyper Cannon is something you do not want to be hit by, and it looks like they're all controlled by the Kaiser." Guilmon explained.  
"Think they know we're here?" I concerned.  
"Probably, but they're not looking at us yet… wait, they're turning an- SHIT! Get down!" He shoved me to the ground as the Tankmon fired and their massive shells flew right through the woods above us. "Don't say anything!" Ross angrily pointed to Guilmon.  
"One of these days you'll be wrong." Guilmon gave him a nervous smile.  
"I wish! Come on, Ken-kun, we can't fight them without that Digimental!" He helped me back up and we ran towards the top of the hill, all the while, explosions were bursting all around us.

At the top of the hill, the fire died down a little bit as the Tankmon must have thought we were still further down the wooded hill. We saw in front of us this small clearing and the sun was shining through the tree canopy to this stone pedestal with two objects on it. One was green with a pink symbol on the front while the other one was black with a grey symbol on it.  
"Well, I recognized the black Digimental, that's got the Crest of Honor on it, but the other one…" Ross was confused. The closer I looked at the green one, my mind suddenly recognized the symbol.  
"I've seen this before." I spoke up.  
"Where?" I dug into my pocket and found what I was looking for. I held up a small pink object that had the symbol on it. Ross's eyes widened. "That's a Crest."  
"A Crest?" He reached into his shirt and pulled out a necklace with a golden colored object and inside it was the symbol on the other Digimental.  
"This is a Crest. It signifies the greatest trait in us Chosen Children. Mine's honor, Taichi's courage, Hikari's light, and so forth. Of course, this is just a replica, our real ones were destroyed in our fight with Apoclymon."  
"Who?"  
"Story for another time." We nearly fell over as a blast hit not too far away.

"I think these Digimentals must belong to you guys! You've got to pull them out!" Guilmon shouted.  
"Hurry, Ken-chan! They're getting closer!" Wormmon insisted.  
"Listen to me, Ken-kun. You need to grab your Digimental and pull it out. After that, you need to say 'Digimental Up' and that will allow Wormmon to Armor-Evolve." Ross explained.  
"Got it." I agreed.  
"That is, if it's even ours…" He mumbled.  
"What?!"  
"Just ignore me, it's probably ours." Way to make worried there. I'm barely keeping it together when I get interviewed by reporters, so I'm not that great when it comes to being nervous. I took a deep breath and looked back to Wormmon.  
"You can do it, Ken-chan!" Wormmon cheered for me. I gave a determined smile and looked back at the object. Ross and I grabbed the Digimentals and pulled them out with little effort. I then saw my Digivice morph until it looked like the rest of the group's Digivices but it had a deep green side. Ross' did the same but his was a dark grey color. We looked at each other and nodded. Time to take this fight back to the Kaiser.  
"Digimental Up!" We cried.  
"Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!"  
"Guilmon, Armor-Evolve! Honorable Fire, WAIBANMON!"

That evolution was truly amazing. Tetermon was a larger bug with a large purple stinger on his tail, two large claws, and two silver objects sticking out of his back that had four exhaust vents, like it was some sort of rocket booster. He was also coated in green armor. Waibanmon on the other hand, was a large dragon with two large black armored wings and a black armored chest and head. The rest of him was red with black stripes along his skin.  
"Now this feels right." Waibanmon said as he closed his claws.  
"How do I look, Ken-chan?" Tetermon asked.  
"Great… you look great." I smiled.  
"Come on, you two! Show those Tankmon true armor!" Ross pumped his fist.  
"Right!" Both Digimon flew up past the trees and speed down the hill towards the attacking Digimon.

The Tankmon redirected their fire towards the two Digimon but they were fast enough to dodge all the fire coming their way.  
"Waiban Flame!" Waibanmon's mouth shot out a stream of blue flame, which meant that fire was white hot, and coated the road right in front of the Tankmon who had to roll backwards. The Tankmon redirected their fire towards Tetermon and opened fire with the smaller chain guns that were on their arms. The rounds flew right towards him but he didn't try to avoid them.  
"Teter Spin!" Tetermon spun towards them rapidly and all the shots simply bounced off of him before he appeared right in front of three of the Tankmon.  
"Tetermon! Target the Evil Rings around their cannons!  
"Precision Sting!" His stinger glowed a dark purple and he made three quick jabs that destroyed the rings. While three of them had been freed from the Kaiser's control, the other two turned to shoot Tetermon in the back. Thankfully, Waibanmon was there to stop them.  
"Steel Swipe!" He dived down fast with his wings glowing and struck the two remaining Tankmon before flying back up, with the rings being destroyed.  
"Alright!" Both Ross and I cheered.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Always full of surprises, aren't we, Ken?" The Kaiser viewed another defeat. However, he wasn't upset. All the Chosen Children had been doing was stopping his plans in a small area. It was nothing compared to what he was doing. Sooner or later, the Chosen Children would be up against the wall, and victory would be his.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We arrived back to the town while riding on the Tankmon just before we sank the bridge. The Kaiser would get the town but he wouldn't get the Digimon who escaped in good order.  
"That's going to take a while to rebuild." Wormmon observed.  
"The Kaiser relies on slave labor. He'll have it back up in a few days." Guilmon darkly admitted.  
"But we saved the Digimon, and that's important." Ken said.  
"Spoken like a true Chosen Child. Welcome to the gang, Ken-kun." I held out my hand and he shook it. "It's getting late, and I take it your folks don't know about the Digimon."  
"No, they don't."  
"Alright then. Let's go home, everyone!" I shouted. "Today we made a difference." Ken's going to fit in just fine with the younger group. And it'll also help us thanks to his genius intellect in our fight against the Kaiser. If we can get him and Koushiro together in a room, suddenly I pity the Kaiser.

He won't stand a chance now…

* * *

Oh, if only they knew.

Tetermon's design is also on that neoarchangemon did on DeviantArt while Waibanmon is MegaloRex's Wyvernmon. The differences is I changed the name to how Wyvern is said in Japanese and changed the armor from Courage which MegaloRex drew to Honor.

Ken's now join the gang and he'll be playing a major part of the story much earlier than he did in the original timeline.

Hope you'll stick around for that. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	7. Destroying the Dark Tower! Raimon!

And once again, I'm back again. I'm trying to knock as many of these out before classes start in mid-January. I think I might be able to reach some of my favorite chapters before then, but I don't know.

Shout out to the reviews left by **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96**. Thanks again.

Anyways, let's carry on with the story.

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Destroying the Dark Tower! Raimon!**

 _Digital World. April 14th, 2002. 0936 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Our first weekend of the war and we started it off with quite the bang. Yesterday, the new children or as I was now referring to them now as the New Breed, had discovered a prison complex not too far away from where Takeru and Hikari had found their Digimentals. Throughout the night, I planned out the liberation of the complex before I ran it by Koushiro a few hours ago. We all got to the school early and headed out with Miyako and Koushiro standing by while Taichi, myself, and the rest of the New Breed launched our attack. So far, the plan is going without a hitch… of course, in my experience, that's when things go wrong.

"Baby Flame!" "Fireball!" Agumon and Guilmon blew out the bars to one of the cells that were holding several Gotsumon. It was actually the only cell that was occupied. The rest were all strangely empty.  
"V-mon Head!" V-mon head-butted what was left of the bars and helped up two of the Gotsumon. "Everyone, run!" He shouted.  
"Hurry! This way, everyone!" Daisuke motioned as we ran away from the prison. While there was no resistance, we didn't want to run the risk that this was an elaborate trap. After running for what felt like a kilometer, we finally stopped to catch our breath.  
"Our plan worked!" Taichi cheered.  
"Good job, everyone!" Agumon complimented.  
"When that Digimon Kaiser guy finds out what happened, I'd like to see his face." Daisuke panted.

"But it's strange…" Takeru thought.  
"What is?" Patamon asked.  
"The security here was poor, practically non-existent… and he wasn't here either. Maybe he had other plans and went somewhere else."  
"Plus there was barely any captives; it looks like most have already been moved somewhere else." I noticed.  
"I'm guessing he doesn't really care about one small prison. He has a vast empire here in the Digital World, so he probably has more prisons; ones much larger than this one." Ken believed. He's probably right. What we're doing is just a drop in the ocean; we need bigger targets to put the hurt on. Still, a small prison was good way to give these kids some experience in fighting.  
"What are you all talking about? He just got scared of us and ran." Daisuke dismissed our concerns. "Right, Hikari-chan?"  
"I agree with Takeru-kun." She said, much to Daisuke's disappointment. "But what do you think he's trying to do?"  
"Hmm… anyway, let's go back to the school. Koushiro and Miyako-chan must be worried." Taichi led us back towards the TV and home.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Ken was right about the Kaiser not caring what had happened. Instead, he was more concerned conquering yet another area of the Digital World. On a screen in front of him, there were many white and black boxes. These represented areas in the Digital World and the black spaces indicated that it was an area he controlled. He sat and watched as another white box turned black; indicating that he now controlled the area.  
"Another one has become mine." He said with fiendish glee. An hour later, he was in the area that he just took. A black obelisk structure that looked like a photo negative of the Washington Monument stood out of the top of a rocky mountain. Down the mountain was a road that cut through some ancient ruins before leading to a town that looked Spanish in nature.

"Do you see that black tower?" The Kaiser pointed to the tower. "That's a Dark Tower. Wherever it stands, that's my territory." He declared to a group of Gazimon with some controlled Vegimon as his forward guard. "And you're all my servants. Understood?"  
 _"_ _They're all controlled by those rings…"_ Gabumon thought to himself as he stood in front of the Gazimon, looking defeated.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 14th, 2002. 0954 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We got back to the school, but we had brought back with us a few extra Digimon than normal much to Koushiro and Miyako's surprise.  
"Why did you bring the Gotsumon here?" Koushiro questioned.  
"We had no choice." Taichi told them. "We don't know when the Digimon Kaiser would return… Right?"  
"Yeah." Both Ross and Hikari nodded.  
"What if Fujiyama-sensei finds them?" Miyako reminded.  
"It's okay, we practiced something just in case." Iori assured them. "Now, pose!" All the Gotsumon moved into different positions to make themselves look like sculptures. "So? Don't they look like statures?"  
"Eh…" Miyako was surprised once more.  
"Maybe we should find a better place for them to stay for the time being." suggested Ken. "Though that was a really smart idea, Iori-kun."

"Miyako-kun, can I borrow your Digivice for a while?" Koushiro asked her.  
"Uh, sure… but why?"  
"I want to see if there might be any sort of differences between your Digivices and ours. I mean, they obviously have the power to open the gate to the Digital World, right?"  
"You think there's a difference between them?" Taichi wondered.  
"I just want to see what's going on, if there are any differences between the ones that were already the new shape like yours, Iori-kun and Daisuke-kun's and the ones that morphed like the rest of ours. Is that alright?" Miyako nodded and handed her Digivice to Koushiro.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

After Gabumon and the Gazimon were taken to a newly constructed prison at the base of the Dark Tower, the Kaiser cracked his whip at Vegimon.  
"Come on, to the next area! Hurry!" Gabumon watched as the Vegimon lifted and carried the Kaiser away on a throne.  
"Alright, he's leaving. Time to escape!" Gabumon informed the Gazimon in the cell with him. "Petit Fire!" He blew down one of the doors that actually collapsed right on top of the two Vegimon guarding them. All of them took their chance and made a break for it. However, a thorny vine came out of nowhere and smacked Gabumon right in the face.  
"Did you think you could escape? That's impossible."  
"You are…" Gabumon muttered.  
"The fearsome ripe vegetable, RedVegimon!"

"What are you going to do?"  
"Trying to escape is a serious offense! The punishment is one hundred hits!" For the next hour, Gabumon would take hit after hit and the controlled RedVegimon attacked with impunity. "Sixty-six! Sixty-seven! Sixty-eight! Sixty-nine! Seventy! Seventy-one! Seventy-two! Seventy-three!" The last hit pushed Gabumon right off of a cliff edge on the other side of the mountain and into the river down below. "Finished at seventy-three! Still, I doubt he's alive!" However, as it turned out, Gabumon had survived but only barely. Gabumon was washed ashore and was struggling to hang on. He noticed the TV in front of him and crawled forward to it.  
"I can't die… I-I have to warn them somehow… Everyone… Yamato…"

 _Odaiba Music Hall, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 14th, 2002. 1226 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

 _"…_ _I can't use it as a shield! I'm alright on my own! I'll even walk the edge of a knife; I'll even walk the edge of a knife…"_ The whole crowd went nuts after that last song. The Teenage Wolves and I got our first big gig playing at the local music hall today. It wasn't that big, but it was better than nothing. After the show, Takeru was waiting for me backstage and explained to me what had happened earlier today.  
"So, we have to find a place for the Gotsumon…"  
"Do you know of any good place?" He asked me.  
"Not really…"

A deep red spikey haired girl who looked about a year older than me ran up to us.  
"Hey, can I have your autograph?" She asked.  
"Sure." She turned around after handing me a marker; I guess she wants me to autograph the back of her shirt. "Your name?"  
"Motomiya. Motomiya Jun." Wait, where have I heard that name before? Looks like Takeru was thinking the same thing because he beat me to the punch on that one.  
"Eh? Motomiya Jun? Are you Daisuke-kun's sister, by any chance?"  
"Yeah, but…" Oh, now I see the resemblance. "Who are you?"  
"He's my younger brother, Takeru." I introduced.  
"Nice to meet you. Daisuke-kun is my classmate."  
"Oh? Well, you're cute! Sign too!" She placed the marker in Takeru's hands, much to his surprise. "Daisuke isn't cute at all… I wish I had a brother like you two…"

The moment was interrupted when my Digivice suddenly began to beep.  
"Huh?" I questioned as I held it up. It was flashing a red symbol that read emergency. "Trouble." I muttered.  
"My D-Terminal too." Takeru told me. "'SOS signal received, come here… Miyako.' Onii-chan!" He looked at me.  
"Could it be Gabumon!?" I worried. We both ran off and left Jun behind as we ran towards the school. We got to the school and after a few quick introductions, Miyako was setting things up.  
"Chosen Children… Let's roll!" Miyako cried and we were on our way to the Digital World. As soon as we got there I noticed two things. One, my clothes had changed. I was now wearing a black leather jacket with what I think is some sort of cartoonish looking Gabumon on the back, a white shirt and some blue jeans. The second thing I noticed was Gabumon laying right in front of me, looking worse for wear.

"Gabumon!" I shouted.  
"Yamato…?" He groaned.  
"Hang in there, Gabumon…" I ran up to him. Apparently my appearance was all that was needed to help him recover because he got back up and looked much better.  
"I missed you!" He hugged me. I responded in kind.  
"I missed you too, Gabumon." I then broke off the hug to get some answers. "What's wrong? What happened?"  
"Hmm… well…" We heard the TV behind us turn on and saw Miyako on the screen.  
"Guys! I'm going to Izumi-senpai's place to get my Digivice." She informed us.  
"Meanwhile, I will act as communicator here." Poromon said as Gabumon explained the situation.

"Got it!" Daisuke gave a thumbs up.  
"This TV can be used to send an SOS signal to the other world…" Tailmon explained. "Both Agumon and Guilmon used it to communicate with us."  
"Really?" Hikari questioned.  
"It's how I was able to find Ken-chan. I found the TV, saw him on the monitor and jumped in and that's how I ended up in the Real World." Wormmon informed.  
"Is that what happened? Hmm…" Ken nodded in understanding as Gabumon finished telling us what had happened.  
"Guys, we know the location!" Patamon alerted the group.

About an hour later, we had arrived to the outskirts of a small town that stood at the base of a mountain.  
"That's the town of Santa Geria." Gabumon pointed ahead. "It was a peaceful town, but… when the Digimon Kaiser appeared, all the town's Digimon were imprisoned."  
"That tower…" Tailmon gasped as she saw the black tower at the peak of the mountain. "There was another one at the place with the Gotsumon."  
"It's called a Dark Tower. The Digimon Kaiser built it."  
"Alright, let's go!" Daisuke began to run off with V-mon right behind him. He's certainly a lot like Taichi, that's for sure.  
"Wait!" I stopped him. "Before we do anything, remember our goal is to free the Digimon."  
"I know. It'll be easy with Armor Evolution!"  
"We can't do that!" Takeru now spoke up. "If we do that, they could use the captured Digimon as shields."  
"That's true. We came here to rescue them, so it would be pointless." Hikari agreed much to Daisuke's chagrin.

"The guards are Vegimon, right?" Patamon asked for a reminder. "Those throw poop at you…"  
"What about RedVegimon?" I wondered. I didn't remember much about them. I do know Pinochimon decapitated one that served him when he tried to make his escape, only to run into MetalGarurumon and I who finished him off.  
"Well…"  
"Bah, they're leaving us out." Daisuke angrily grumbled. "Iori, Ken, why don't we try?"  
"No, I'll hear their plan." Iori ran over to us.  
"They are right, Daisuke-kun. We need to think of something that doesn't involve the direct approach." Ken joined us as well leaving Daisuke all alone.

We eventually came up with the idea of sneaking into the town in order to reach the prison.  
"Alright then, we'll infiltrate the prison." I led the group forward.  
"H-hold on!" Daisuke cried. "Hikari-chan is coming with us? I'm against that. With the poop enemies and all…"  
"It's okay…" Hikari assured him.  
"You already saw poop attacks in the last adventure, right?" Takeru reminded.  
"Yeah."  
"Hey, Takeru! Don't you have any telepathy?" Daisuke shouted at him.  
"Telepathy?" We were all confused by that sentence.  
"You mean 'delicacy'…" Iori seemed to figure out what he said. We all then laughed while Daisuke just looked even madder.

We reached the edge of the town where we had begun to implement our plan. It was to have some of our Digimon fake being the Kaiser's servants then be allowed into town where we could easily avoid almost all of the guards. Suffice to say, not everyone agreed with this plan.  
"This is a bad idea…" Ken quietly worried. "I don't think they're as dumb as you say."  
"Quiet." I whispered.  
"Stop! Who are you?" One of the Vegimon guards at the gate questioned as we walked up all tied together with Gabumon.  
"We captured the Digimon that escaped and their friends." Tailmon lied, but she made sure to flash her fake ring. The guards seemed to buy it and moved out of the way.  
"We'll throw you into prison now!" "C'mon, walk faster!" "Keep moving, keep moving!" Our Digimon kept up the charade while the Vegimon all laughed.  
"They didn't notice they're fake rings." Patamon said as we were deep in the town away from the Vegimon.  
"We can't let our guard down, though." Tailmon reminded. "We're right in the middle of enemy territory."

"C'mon, stop messing around!" The Vegimon threw us in a temporary prison with the rest of the Gazimon in the town. "You'll all be punished with one hundred hits tomorrow! Good job, everyone!" The Vegimon turned to the realization that they had been fooled once our Digimon took off their rings.  
"You did well, too. Neko Punch!" Tailmon slammed one Vegimon right into the gate bars while the others were quickly subdued by the rest of our Digimon. We got out and headed back down for the gate now that our goal of freeing the captive Digimon was accomplished. Patamon flew ahead before he suddenly went wide eyed.  
"Stop!" He shouted. Daisuke and V-mon popped their heads around the corner and must have seen some guards in our path out of the town.  
"There are guards everywhere all of a sudden!" V-mon quietly exclaimed.  
"It's our turn now." Daisuke pulled out his Digivice and it was clear he wanted to fight. I grabbed his shoulder to stop him once more.  
"Wait. Do you want to lose the Digimon we just rescued?"  
"Let's go up, where that black tower is." suggested Gabumon.  
"I agree." Patamon flew ahead once more and we all followed, though Daisuke was kind of lagging behind.  
"Why, why?!" He angrily cursed.

After a while of walking, we finally got almost halfway up the path to the tower, having just navigated those rocky ruins.  
"By the way, Daisuke-kun... I met your sister today." Takeru recalled our earlier encounter with Jun.  
"Ah… so?"  
"So?"  
"She bad-mouthed me, right?"  
"Not really."  
"Yeah, she did. She always has to talk bad about me to everyone. She doesn't like me… well, I don't like her either, so we're even." Oh, that set me off.  
"Hey! What are you talking about?" I ran back down to him.  
"What?"  
"If you were my younger brother, I wouldn't forgive you for that. I'd beat you up."  
"Interesting. Bring it, then!"

"Stop!" Takeru grabbed me before I did something drastic. "You won't hit him. You wouldn't do that, right?" I sighed. He's right. I'm letting my emotions get the better of me. Maybe it's because he kinda reminds me of the old hotheaded Taichi that I used to fight, but that got us nowhere in the past.  
"I wouldn't… but watch what you say." Both Takeru and I walked away once more.  
"Why can't he just shut up?" Daisuke grumbled. "I can say whatever I want about that stupid girl." Now that seemed to set of Hikari who ran back down the path.  
"Stop it, Daisuke-kun! I hate people who talk bad about their siblings."  
"Hate?" Sounds like Daisuke didn't like that as he practically slumped as we all moved ahead.  
"Daisuke…" V-mon tried to get his partner's attention.  
"She hates me… Hikari-chan hates me…" Does Daisuke have a crush on Hikari? And is he aware of how obvious he's showing it right now?  
 _"_ _It's the first time I see Daisuke like this… I have to cheer him up."_ V-mon thought.

"Hey, I just remembered, you have an older sibling as well, Ken-san." Iori mentioned.  
"Oh, yeah… well…" Ken sounded a little guilty about that.  
"Well what?"  
"Well, our relationship is basically kind of like Daisuke-kun's. We don't hate each other, not at all! But… he's more distant these days. He'd rather focus more on his studies rather than be with me. He never comes to any of my games and the times that Mom makes us hang out with each other, I feel he'd rather be back home in his books." He explained.  
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."  
"I think it's because he's grown up a bit too fast. His whole strive for perfection prevented him from enjoying being a kid, I think."  
"Hmm… well, he certainly doesn't show it."  
"No, he's always been humble." The conversation was soon interrupted when our Digivices began to beep. "Wait… is that…?"  
"A Digimental!" Takeru exclaimed. "It's right up ahead!"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

As we got to the top, we couldn't find any sign of the Digimental even though we were right on top of it. The thought then occurred that maybe we had to dig for it so Armadimon got to work while the rest of us tried to find a way out of the area. Of course, the only way was down the cliff to the river below.  
"Wait, we have to go down from here?" Takeru realized.  
"It's too high… it's impossible!" Hikari shouted.  
"We need rope or something… at least give us a better chance of falling into that river." Yamato observed.  
"Hey, over here!" Iori called out. We all turned and saw the Digimental in the ground. It kinda looked like a blue flip flop with a lightning bolt sticking out of it. None of us picked it up yet because it was still somewhat buried, heck, we couldn't even see the symbol on it.  
"Give me a few more moments, I'll get it out." Armadimon got back to digging.  
"In the meantime, I'll go back and find some rope." Gabumon was about to go back the way we came before two of those Gazimon got in front of him.  
"Wait! In appreciation for rescuing us, we'll go." They offered.  
"Thanks! Then, let's go together!"

The three of them started to move before they were all quickly pelted by pink… um… ice cream swirls…  
"I won't let you do that!" We turned to see the RedVegimon and multiple Vegimon now blocking our path. Damn it, those guards we took out must have come to faster than expected! Should've just fought our way out!  
"Alright, watch this, Daisuke!" I turned to look at V-mon. "He's red, but he's just another Vegimon. He can't be that strong. I'll show you some cool moves and cheer you up, Daisuke!" He ran forward.  
"Cheer me up? Hey, V-mon! Wait!" V-mon just got slammed in the face by that RedVegimon's spikey vine.  
"You shouldn't underestimate me. Red Hot Machine Gun!" He opened his mouth and multiple flaming peppers shot out and exploded in V-mon's face.  
"Guys, Armor Evolution!" I cried.  
"Yes!" "Right!" Iori and Ken ran up next to me but we were all quickly jumped by the Vegimon!  
"We won't let you!" The Vegimon cried. Patamon tried to help but another Red Hot Machine Gun knocked him back to the ground and he was seized as well.

"Hazard Breath!" A sickish green fog came out RedVegimon's mouth and engulfed the others.  
"It stinks!" "It's killing my nose…" "I can't breathe!" The Vegimon used the chance to grab everyone else. I think we're in trouble now!  
"S-sorry, guys…" V-mon was being crushed in the vines.  
"Apologizing won't help you now!" RedVegimon then slammed him into the ground.  
"V-mon!" I called out, while the Vegimon tightened their grip on me.  
"He's getting the one-hundred-hit punishment, watch closely!" He then threw three quick hits but V-mon got back up. "You've got some guts… But… how long will you last?" Three more hits followed.  
"I can't look!" Gabumon shouted.  
"And we can't do anything!" growled Yamato.  
"L-let him go… V-mon!" I yelled.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon was hit once more.

We watched as poor V-mon was struck repeatedly, he was now at almost eighty hits.  
"I can't lose…" V-mon grumbled as he tried to get up once more. "…if I do, Daisuke will feel even worse!" What!? Oh, no! It's my fault… because I looked downtrodden after Hikari yelled at me. V-mon only wants to help me… and instead, he's going to get killed because of it!  
"Hey, you! Why don't you beat me up instead!?" I roared at RedVegimon.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon was clipped in the head, but RedVegimon swung a bit too hard and crashed his thorny fist into the Dark Tower that caused some structural damage.  
"Please! Let V-mon go! Come on!" I begged.  
"What a beautiful friendship…" RedVegimon taunted. "But don't worry, when I'm done with this guy, it'll be your turn!"  
"Stop!"

"If I could evolve…" Gabumon grumbled.  
"It's not reacting, so you can't…" Yamato informed. "If only we could've gotten that Digimental…"  
"Armadimon, what symbol was on the Digimental?" Iori asked.  
"Uh, a blue circle, dagyaa."  
"With two curved wings?" Yamato wondered.  
"Yeah!"  
"That's the Crest of Friendship!"  
"Then that must be yours, Yamato-san!" Hikari cried.  
"But how do we get to it? We're all tied up!" I questioned.  
"I've got it!" Ken seemed to have come up with a plan. "Wormmon, what's your best defense?" Wormmon's eyes widened as he figured out the plan. "On my signal…"

"Ninety-nine!" I looked back and saw V-mon was looking tired as he was backed up against the tower after another hit from RedVegimon.  
"V-mon!" I cried.  
"You've lasted pretty long… But this is the last one. I'll send you to hell! One- hun-!"  
"NOW!" Ken interrupted.  
"Silk Thread!" Wormmon shot silk out of his mouth that hit the Vegimon right in the eyes.  
"Ahh!" They all shouted as they lessened their grip to clear the webbing from their eyes. Yamato took his chance and broke free before he jumped right for the exposed Digimental in the ground. He was then able to rip it from its place.  
"Onii-chan… was able to pull it out by himself…" Takeru was surprised. Meanwhile, Yamato quickly looked to his Digivice and saw it morphing into the new kind with a navy blue side and then he smiled.  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Gabumon, Armor-Evolve! Thunderous Friendship! RAIMON!"

Raimon was a truly a beast. A large bipedal wolf-reptile with the armor coving his face and body and he looked mad.  
"Wha…" RedVegimon was suddenly looking very nervous at the creature growling at him.  
"Electric Javelin!" Raimon opened his mouth and a large wave of lightning shot out that made all the Vegimon around us panic and run away.  
"Come on, V-mon! Let's get some payback! Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" RedVegimon tried to regain the upper hand and fire his Red Hot Machine Gun but they all simply bounced off Fladramon's hand. He then got punched in the face.  
"V-mon, you went through all that whipping and managed to evolve… Now it's your turn! Fight hard and win this battle!" I cried, impressed with everything he went through and he looked like he hadn't suffered anything.  
"Raimon! Don't let him have all the fun! Go get 'em!" Yamato declared. Both Digimon surrounded RedVegimon.

"So you evolved; big deal! I'll still take you down!" RedVegimon threw out his arms but Fladramon caught them and proceeded to throw him up before slamming him onto the ground repeatedly.  
"Is that all?" RedVegimon claimed as he swung his hands towards Raimon now.  
"Thunder Shield!" The lightning bolts on Raimon's back light up and he was covered in a shield of electricity that electrocuted RedVegimon when his vines touched it.  
"Awwwwww!" RedVegimon twitched as his nerves were jolted.  
"Now, finish it!" I yelled.  
"Knuckle Fire!" "Electric Javelin!" Both attacks hit the vegetable and sent him flying into the tower before it snapped in half and fell over.  
"Alright!" "You did it!" Yamato and I cheered for our Digimon.

"Guys!" We heard Miyako shout out. We turned to see her, Koushiro, Taichi, Ross, their Digimon and the Gotsumon we rescued running towards us.  
"Hey, you're not going to believe what just happened on the way here!" Ross panted as they all stopped in front of us.  
"What?" I asked.  
"Our Digivices just made some sort of activation sound the moment that tower came down. I think that meant that our Digimon could normally evolve again!" Taichi explained.  
"What!?" We all shouted. We then saw the Vegimon all taking off their rings.  
"Huh? What have I been doing all this time?" RedVegimon scratched his head as he hopped out of the dust cloud while holding his ring.  
"The Evil Rings' effect is gone!" Tailmon exclaimed.  
"Of course… so that's how it works." Miyako came to some sort of realization.  
"What do you mean?" Hawkmon questioned.

"Let me explain." Koushiro spoke up. "The tower isn't just a monument to the Digimon Kaiser; it's a critical device that allows him to dominate the Digital World. You see, the tower is like a power station and a radio tower. The power station part is required for controlling Digimon with the Evil Rings. If the tower is destroyed, then the rings no longer get power and are no longer able to control Digimon. As for the radio part of the tower, it broadcasts a signal from the Kaiser's Digivice that prevents our Digimon from evolve, no matter where he is."  
"Ah, like an Erusian E-767…" Ross said. "That's an Ace Combat 4 reference, for those of you unaware."  
"Well, then, if that's what those towers do, then our mission is clear." Taichi determined.  
"Yeah… we must destroy all the towers in the areas controlled by the Digimon Kaiser." Yamato explained.  
"We'll do our best, Onii-chan!" Takeru replied.  
"Me too!" I added.

"Yeah, if we destroy the towers and are able to properly evolve…" Agumon started to speak.  
"It'll be easy!" Tailmon finished his sentence.  
"Agumon, let's go to the Gotsumon's area!" Taichi ran ahead with the Gotsumon.  
"Wait up!" "We're going too!" Ross and Hikari ran after him.  
"We'll take the responsibility of guarding this place!" Yamato assured the Gazimon.  
"Thanks!" They all said.

We all got back to the computer lab, and I had a bit of apologizing to do to V-mon.  
"I know it was my fault… I made you worry."  
"Daisuke, you've matured a bit!" Chibimon told me.  
"Eh?"  
"Everyone, take a look at this." Koushiro got our attention.  
"What's this?" Miyako asked.  
"I found this while looking into Miyako-kun's Digivice." The screen showed squares that were white, grey, and black. "It looks like a digital map." He picked up a pencil and pointed it to the screen at a white square in between a bunch of black ones. "This used to be black, now it's white. In other words, this is the area where we destroyed that tower."  
"So that means the black is the Kaiser's territory and the white indicates areas we've liberated." Ken noticed.  
"But the Digital World's black area is really wide." Iori observed.  
"I guess we still have a long way to go." I concluded.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Greymon and Growmon evolved shortly before we got to the Gotsumon's area and soon took down the tower. This was a much needed victory and now we could properly fight this war. Fears of being pushed against the wall were now nonexistent as we could reclaim territory the Kaiser took.  
"All right! Way to go you two!" Hikari cheered.  
"Hey, Taichi? How angry do you think the Kaiser is going to be tonight?" I asked.  
"I'm gonna go with 'mighty pissed'." That sounds about right. Watch out, Herr Kaiser, we're coming for ya!

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser was truly livid the moment he found out that not one but two of his Dark Towers had been destroyed. Now the Chosen Children knew his key in conquering the Digital World and were going to go after more of them.  
"Damn it… It must be them…" He angrily growled. He took a deep breath and soon regained his composure. "It's fine. Strategically, it's not an important area. At this pace, I'll take over this world in less than a year. Digimon, every single one of you, come to me… Serve me… And worship me!" He laughed while Monodramon just looked on in sorrow.

The war had truly begun now and it was going to take a lot of sacrifice before one side could claim victory…

* * *

And that was Chapter 6.

Fun little note, the cartoonish Gabumon on the back of Yamato's back is actually Gabou from V-Tamer 01. Just that would've been kinda cool to put in the story, even if I've never read the manga.

See you all next time folks.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	8. Chilling Reception! MetalSealmon!

Man, I just cranked this one out fast. Maybe it's because I really want to get to the Kaiser revealed chapter.

Well, shoutout to **retro mania** for the fave and follow. Sorry again, I can't really write your story. A Hikari is with the gang at the start of the adventure story I'd really love to see.

And of course the reviews by **GreenD109** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **MadDogLucario96** , thanks. By the way, Green, I'm aware of Yu-Gi-Oh, but I really don't know who's voice would be Osamu's. I guess maybe Romi Park because she voiced him in the few lines he had. As for English, Lucario suggested Todd Haberkorn but he didn't start voice acting until 2004. Does Steve Blum do a good teenager voice without sounding like a lot of his deep voice characters?

Eh, I've rambled on long enough. Here's the next chapter... which I have edited while listening to the _'_ _Victory Celebration'_ from _**Return of the Jedi**_. Yub Nub! Eee Chop Yub Nub!

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Chilling Reception! MetalSealmon!**

 _Odaiba Middle School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 17th, 2002. 1102 Hours.  
P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

I hate to say it, but I rather be out in the Digital World attacked by controlled Digimon then one more minute of this boring algebra lecture. Something clearly must be wrong with me if I'm saying that. The good news was that now we have a strategy about fighting this war against the Digimon Kaiser. For the past two days, we had begun to knock down a few towers but the Kaiser would build new ones elsewhere so we were in a slight stalemate.

The overall objective would be a two pronged attack. We or rather mostly me, actually kinda of based it off the Imperial German Army of the spring of 1918. The New Breed would go attack a tower and take it down. They would be our _sturmtruppen_ which historically broke through many of the trenches during the grand spring offensive of the last year of the Great War. Meanwhile, us older kids, or rather the Old Breed, would then come in, act like the regular army and fill the gaps by holding the areas that the New Breed liberated. If we could contain the Kaiser's advance and prevent him from conquering new areas, then we could push him out of the Digital World once and for all.

Still, there were some issues with the plan. First, it meant that our Digimon would soon find themselves guarding more and more areas and greatly extending their reach. Second, we weren't exactly at full force. While some of our Digimon could Armor-Evolve now and deal with the Kaiser's evolution jamming, we were still short two members. The problem was that no one really had much of an idea where Gomamon or Palmon were, and that was what was concerning. Thankfully, today, one of those questions would partly be answered.

 _Digital World. April 17th, 2002. 1257 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

It was a terrible blizzard that was affecting the area in the far north of the Digital World. The Kaiser had just recently conquered the area and was now in the process of constructing a new prison. The Digimon being used as slave labor in the area were many of the amphibious Gizamon that lived in the waters around the area. One of the Gizamon got tired but the Kaiser swatted him with his whip as he continued to watch the work unfold.

"Here… it's cold. Please put on the jacket." Monodramon walked up holding a large brown winter coat.  
"Don't bother me!" The Kaiser simply just kicked him away as another Gizamon fell over in exhaustion. The Kaiser cracked his whip once more. "Get up already! You're all so slow!" He kept up the whipping until it was suddenly grabbed by Gomamon who jumped out in front of the Gizamon.  
"Stop!" Gomamon shouted. The Kaiser was taken aback by the fact that a Digimon like him was actually defying him. "They're all tired! Besides, the Gizamon can't move well on land!"  
"Why you… I don't need you telling me about Digimon!" He pulled on the whip and freed it from Gomamon's grasp before he stuck him with it. "I'll punish anyone who rebels against me in any way. Hey! Whoever takes him down will get to rest!"

Gomamon got back up and was suddenly shocked to see every single one of the Gizamon now staring him down. The sheer promise and the exhausting work they had been through was enough for the Digimon to turn on the seal Digimon that tried to protect them.  
"No! Stop!" Gomamon cried but it was too late. The Gizamon rolled themselves up in their Spiral Edge attack and begun hitting Gomamon repeatedly before he was knocked to the ground.  
"Heh… just a big talker." The Kaiser looked over the defeated Digimon.  
"So you'll let those who defeated him rest, right?" reminded Monodramon.  
"No." The Kaiser snapped his fingers and a wave of Evil Rings flew out and captured all of the Gizamon, enslaving them. The Kaiser chuckled. "It's easier now, isn't it? The prison in this area is almost complete! Pick up the pace and get it done!" The Gizamon mindlessly obeyed the command they were given and went back to work.

The Kaiser began to walk away when Monodramon looked back to Gomamon.  
"What about Gomamon?" He asked.  
"What about him? Leave him." The Kaiser coldly stated as he kept walking away. Monodramon grabbed the coat and placed it on Gomamon before rejoining the Kaiser. Gomamon regained consciousness and saw that he was now all alone. He knew he couldn't leave those Gizamon alone but he was too weak to do anything right now. He gathered all of his strength and crawled up a hill to a nearby forest when he found a TV lying in the snow.  
"Jou…" He muttered before he fell back into an unconscious state.

Back at Jou's high school, his Digivice began to beep the emergency signal like the others had before.  
"Gomamon?" He questioned with slight worry in his voice.  
"I heard we'll have a quiz today…"  
"For real? Man…" Two of Jou's classmates were complaining about their next class. "Hey, Jou…"  
"I'm skipping class today! Later!" Jou informed as he ran off. He was first going to get somethings before he'd go to the elementary school. All the while, Jou's classmates were completely dumbfounded.  
"Jou skipping class?"  
"Must be something serious?"  
"That or that test scares even him."  
"If that's the case, we're so dead."

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 17th, 2002. 1445 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

As soon as class was let out, I was running towards the computer lab like I was on fire. Today was another day to stick it to the Digimon Kaiser and I didn't want to miss this. As I was running, I noticed Iori up ahead walking down the stairs.  
"Huh? Iori…"  
"Daisuke-san, what is it?"  
"Don't 'what is it' me… you're going home?"  
"I have practice today, for kendo."  
"Hey… the Digital World is in big trouble and you're shirking off your duties!"  
"Once a week, I train at the police dojo with my grandfather. Goodbye." He bowed before he turned away and walked out.

"What's wrong, Daisuke-kun?" I turned to see Hikari right next to me, which perked me up.  
"Hikari-chan! You're going to the computer room, right?"  
"Yeah, of course."  
"Well, if Hikari-chan's coming, I don't care about the others…" I muttered under my breath. "Actually, it's better when no one's around…"  
"Huh?"  
"Ah, nothin' nothin' nothin'! C'mon, let's go!"

We got to the computer lab and my heart sank as I saw that Miyako and Takeru were already here.  
"I can't win…" I mumbled in disappointment.  
"What's wrong?" Hikari asked.  
"We got an SOS signal from the Digital World." Takeru explained. Both Hikari and I ran up to the computer screen. "Must be one of our friends."  
"And… the signal is coming from a black area." Miyako informed. "Far from any region we've been to before."  
"Does that mean that the Digimon Kaiser's controlled area has expanded?" Hikari wondered.  
"I wonder if a new tower was built." Patamon spoke up.  
"That's possible." Tailmon agreed with him.  
"That Digimon Kaiser… taking over those faraway places…" I growled.  
"Even as we speak…" Hikari looked truly sorrowful about what was going on. She takes this much harder than any of us do.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. Got held up by some fan girls out in Tamachi…" Ken apologized as he walked into the lab before opening his bag and letting Wormmon out. Ken was leaving his last class early and riding his bike out here in order to try and help us every day. Of course, most teachers wouldn't allow that, but I guess when you're a genius you get some special privileges.  
"It's okay, Ken-kun." Takeru said.  
"Alright, now that we're all here, let's go to the Digital World!" I declared.  
"All? Iori's not here, dagyaa!" Upamon complained while bouncing on one of the chairs.  
"He's not coming." I told him. Upamon looked sad when I told him that.  
"Why, dagyaa?"  
"He's got kendo lessons."  
"What's kendo, dagyaa?" I grabbed a rolled up magazine and started to hit him.  
"Men! Dou! Kote!" I called out the parts of a kendo suit that are named when striking.  
"Why'd you hit me, dagyaa!?"  
"Because that's kendo."

 _Odaiba Police Dojo, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 17th, 2002. 1459 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

My grandfather, Chikara, and I got right to work immediately. Thankfully, the dojo is only a block away from the school, and I'm pretty fast on getting my gear on. I was panting as Grandfather was putting me through quite the workout today. I was staring him down before my vision was filled with Upamon looking sad as I suddenly thought about him. I accidently stepped forward and Grandfather took advantage of my mistake and struck me in the head with the Shinai.  
"Men!" He shouted as he won the fight.

A few minutes later, we discarded our gear and were relaxing from the fight.  
"What's the matter, Iori? You seem to lack focus today." Grandfather noticed.  
"I apologize, Grandfather."  
"Is something bothering you? Is there a girl you like?"  
"There isn't!" I was quick to defend.  
"Iori. You and your sword are too rigid. Your father, Hiroki, was the same way… Let's take a break." He sat back down and begun to dig through a grocery bag he had on the floor. "Iori, would you like… some Chu-Chu too?" He had a strange look on his face when he said that. "Ah, when I say that, I mean this." He pulled out a packet of Chu-Chu jelly.

I suddenly felt pretty guilty about leaving Upamon behind. Grandfather soon noticed my stern look.  
"What's the matter?" He asked.  
"Grandfather, may we end the lesson for today?"  
"Hmm?"  
"I find it hard to leave in the middle of the lesson, but…"  
"Go. Only you can decide what you must do at any given moment. And you must be true to yourself." I always took Grandfather's wisdom to heart and once more, he gave me some good life advice.  
"Yes! Please tell Mother I'll be late." I gathered my stuff and headed out back to the school but respectfully bowed before I left.

 _P.O.V. – Jou Kido_

I probably grabbed too many things, but when it comes to the Digital World, I'd rather be safe than sorry.  
"Ah! I knew Iori would come, dagyaa!" I heard a voice cry from the other side of the door.  
"Those aren't Iori's footsteps! Hide, everyone!" I opened up the door to see Takeru and Hikari along with the other kids running around with the Digimon trying to hide.  
"Jou-san!" Takeru and Hikari shouted in relief, thankful it was me and not a normal person.  
"H-Hey!" I said as I walked up to them. "I heard about it, but it's kind of weird to see Digimon here. At least, not like the last time." I recalled our fight with Vamdemon.  
"Guys, this is Kido Jou!" Takeru introduced me.  
"Eeh? That's him?" The spiky haired boy questioned. I'm guessing that was Daisuke. "Nice to meet you!"  
"He looks like the type to get really good grades!" The girl, Miyako I assume, exclaimed as she squeezed her poor Digimon in her arms.  
"Very glad to meet you, Jou-senpai." Ken Ichijouji bowed. That was a surprising e-mail to receive the other day that said that one of the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi was a Chosen Child.  
"Jou-san, these are Motomiya Daisuke, Ichijouji Ken, and Inoue Miyako." Hikari properly introduced the others.

"We just received an SOS signal from the Digital World." Takeru told me.  
"It's from Gomamon." I replied.  
"So your Digivice reacted too?"  
"Snacks? Snacks?" The little blue lizard Digimon was pawing at my bag. I had to lift it up just to prevent him from eating them.  
"Aah, we'll eat these over there!"  
"Over there?"  
"You're coming with us to the Digital World?" Hikari asked.  
"I'm worried about Gomamon…" Takeru held up his new Digivice.  
"With these new Digivices of ours, we can open a gate to the Digital World."  
"I know, Koushiro has been keeping me well informed about everything. I actually kinda look forward to whatever exploits you guys do every night."

"I'll open the gate then." Miyako walked over to the computer.  
"Okay!" Daisuke nodded and they held their Digivices up to the screen.  
"I'm sorry!" The door slid open and we turned to see a younger kid in the doorway. I'm guessing this was young Iori.  
"Iori, you're late, dagyaa!" The small pale colored Digimon shouted. "I was going to the Digital World by myself, dagyaa!" Iori soon noticed me.  
"Kido-san, right? I am Hida-"  
"Hey, the gate is open!" interrupted Daisuke.  
"Chosen Children… let's roll!" Miyako exclaimed as we all went to the Digital World.

The cold hit us all like a brick through a window. I looked to see my clothes had changed like Koushiro had explained. Just my luck though, my outfit had to be completely ill-suited to the cold. I was wearing a white shirt with a black vest over it with some cargo shorts and grey sneakers.  
"It's freezing… what's with this place?" complained Daisuke. "Hikari-chan, are you alright?"  
"Yeah."  
"Hey, I found a coat! Here, Ken-chan, you look cold." The worm Digimon walked over to his partner.  
"Thanks, Wormmon, but I think Jou-senpai could use it more than me." Ken grabbed the coat and handed it to me. I nodded in thanks as I put it on before I begun to dig in my bag.  
"Um… my introduction was cut short earlier." Iori walked up. "I am Hida-"  
"Hey, now's not the time for introductions!" Daisuke interrupted him again. I soon found what I was looking for in my bag.  
"Everyone, these may help." I handed everyone the heating pads that I had bought.  
"As expected from Jou-san, always prepared!" Takeru said.

I looked forward into the icy fields and felt worried.  
"Where could Gomamon be…" I wondered.  
"I'm still freezing…" Miyako muttered. She then dropped her heating pad by accident. "Aw, man… Ah! Jou-san!" I turned around and looked into the spot she was looking and saw a closed eyelid. I knew who that was in a heartbeat.  
"Gomamon!" We proceeded to dig him out of the snow and I bundled him up in the coat that we found. "Gomamon! Gomamon!" Gods, he looks terrible, what with being covered in all those cuts and bruises. He finally started to twitch before he slowly opened his eyes.  
"Jou…?"  
"Hang in there!"  
"You came…"  
"Of course! Even though we're apart, I'm worried about you…"  
"Tentomon told me I'd be able to contact you using the TV…"  
"Yeah. I got your signal."

"Even if I sent an SOS, Iori wouldn't come, dagyaa…" The yellow armadillo who was Iori's partner sounded upset.  
"Why are you pouting, Armadimon?" Tailmon asked.  
"What happened…? You're hurt badly…" I questioned as I slowly rubbed Gomamon's head. I felt terrible; Damn it all, I should've been here sooner!  
"That guy… that Digimon Kaiser!" Gomamon slowly looked more determined, like he was starting to get his strength back.  
"So there's another tower here…" Daisuke noticed the black obelisk in the distance.  
"What?" I asked.  
"It's a tower built by the Digimon Kaiser." Hikari explained.  
"In the areas with towers, the Digimon Kaiser enslaves the Digimon using the Evil Rings." Takeru continued.  
"And evolution is impossible…"  
"Unless of course we knock it down, then the evolving is possible and the Digimon captured go free." Ken added.  
"Dammit! We'll take it down!" growled Daisuke.

"The only problem is… we have to cross this snow field to get there." Hikari worried.  
"It will be tough to get across…" Takeru nodded.  
"Did you bring any skis or skates?" Miyako asked.  
"I didn't go that far…" I chuckled. If I had known we'd be coming here, I definitely would've bought those.  
"Jou-san, do you have rope?" Daisuke called out from nearby the trees. Oh, now I think I know what his plan is.

Our Digimon proceeded to cut down some of the trees. Our plan was to build ourselves a sled that we'd pull along the snow and get across the field. Building a sled was making me kind of nostalgic of the old days when we built a raft to get to Server Continent. Hopefully, we won't get eaten by a giant mammal on the way to the tower.  
"Alright, it's done!" Daisuke wiped the sweat from his brow.  
"This should be fast!" Miyako believed.  
"Okay guys, we're counting on you!" The Digimon would pull the sled like artic huskies.  
"Anything to destroy that tower!" Armadimon said.  
"Armadimon, I'm counting on you." Iori told him. Armadimon said nothing but turned his head away from Iori. We all hopped on and got ready to head out.  
"Here we go!" Daisuke yelled.  
"Right!" The Digimon cried as they began to move.

We were suddenly making great distances on the sled as the tower was getting closer and closer.  
"It's really fast!" Miyako exclaimed. However, as we should've assumed that our journey to the tower was going to be anything but easy as over the hill we soon saw a whole line of Yukidarumon. "Are those snowmen? There's so many of them, how cute!"  
"Uh, Miyako-san? You may wanna look closer!" Ken pointed out that all of them had a strange black band around their legs… an Evil Ring; which meant they were all being controlled.  
"Get them!" We heard a voice yell out over the air. The Kaiser must be here watching us, that's the only explanation.  
"Yukidarumon!" I cried. "Peaceful snow Digimon but get them upset and their Zettai Reido Punch will freeze you to death!" They launched their attacks and our Digimon had to pull the sled out of the way just to keep us from being hit. One blast blew up some snow that pelted Daisuke.  
"You little…" He grumbled.

"Let's try to speed past them!" I suggested.  
"Speed past?" Daisuke questioned.  
"Our goal is to take down the tower, it's better to keep going that fight!"  
"Right, got it!"  
"Guys, keep it up!" Takeru ordered our Digimon to keep going while I held Gomamon even closer. The last thing he needs right now is more injuries.  
"Okay!" The Digimon answered. We dodged more attacks before we finally reached the line and went past them.  
"Too slow…" "Piece of cake!" Daisuke and Miyako cheered. The Yukidarumon shot their attacks past our heads.  
"Where are you aiming?" Daisuke questioned.  
"Those hills ahead of us! TURN! TURN! TURN!" Ken screamed as an avalanche of snow was heading right for us!

Our Digimon turned in time but we were going off course now. We now were about to fall down a large ravine that was ahead of us.  
"Jump!" Daisuke ordered. Our Digimon jumped and we got over the ravine, though barely. They had to scramble to keep us from falling as we didn't fully clear it. We breathed a sigh of relief before we now had the icy ocean in front of us and had to turn again. We turned too hard and were thrown off the raft and poor Iori was thrown clear off of it into the freezing waters below.  
"Leave it to me!" Gomamon jumped out of my arms and quickly rescued Iori before the cold water could hurt him anymore.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I don't think I've ever been in water that cold before in my entire life. I'm certainly glad that Gomamon quickly rescued me and that all I have to worry about is cold and wet clothes rather than some serious damage like frostbite or hypothermia. I sat close to the fire that we had set up in a cave we found near the water with the coat we found bundled over me.  
"Iori…" Armadimon looked worried for me, much different from his attitude earlier. I'm sure he was probably resentful that I had chosen my kendo lessons over him. I'm going to have to fix that. Maybe I'll take him with me next time, so long as he acts like a stuffed animal. Wouldn't want Grandfather hitting him in the head with a Shinai.

"You should take some cold medicine." Jou offered me a glass.  
"Yes, thanks…" I accepted his offer.  
"Senpai, you're really prepared!" Miyako was impressed.  
"What now…? Iori-kun shouldn't move like this…" Hikari observed.  
"The rest of us will go!" determined Takeru. The others nodded.  
"I'll stay and look after Iori-kun." Jou said.  
"We leave it to you."  
"I'm going too!" I quickly got up. "I left my lesson… if I don't go, I wouldn't be able to face my grandfather!" I explained.  
"If you come with us, there's a chance you might not be able to face him at all. You're in no condition to go out there right now, Iori-kun." Ken tried to stop me for probably doing something drastic.

"Let's leave this to them…" Jou told me.  
"Right, dagyaa! Iori, your health is more important, dagyaa." Armadimon tried to console me. I felt really touched by his sheer determination to watch out for me.  
"Armadimon… Okay, I'll wait here!" I finally agreed.  
"Leave it to us. We'll tear that tower apart!" Daisuke promised as they headed back outside onto the sled and towards the tower.

"Are you okay?" Jou asked once more.  
"I'm sorry." I apologized.  
"Iori, sorry about earlier…" Now it was Armadimon's turn for apologizing. "I didn't know you left your kendo lesson."  
"Armadimon, it's okay. I wanted to come."  
"I ditched a practice test at school today, too." admitted Jou. "But I don't mind, because I wanted to come. They call us the Chosen Children, but actually, we're the ones choosing… what we should do and what we want to do."  
"Jou-san…"

Our conversation was interrupted when the whole cave began to rock.  
"Wh-what the!?" Jou exclaimed. We ran outside the cave and waiting right there for us was the Kaiser and a large shell-wearing mollusk Digimon.  
"I hope you don't think you can get away from me." He told us. Jou turned his attention back to the tower and noticed it was still up.  
"Gomamon… we have to keep Shellmon busy until Takeru-kun and the rest destroy the tower. I know you're hurt, but I need you to prolong the battle as long as you can." Jou whispered.  
"Got it!" Gomamon jumped out of his arms and walked up to the large Digimon. "Hey, Shellmon! Over here!" Shellmon tried to stomp him but he jumped back out of the way.  
 _"_ _Takeru-kun, Hikari-chan, hurry up and get that tower…!"_ Jou thought.

Gomamon dodged a few more stomps but we were still getting nowhere.  
"Keep it up, Gomamon!" Jou called out.  
"Oh, enough of this. Shellmon!" The Kaiser ordered and the Shellmon fired a large torrent of water at us.  
"Run!" Jou ordered and we fell back into the cave. Shellmon directed his fire to the entrance of the cave and caused a cave-in that trapped us in the cave.  
"Great…" I muttered.  
"Don't worry, I can just evolve into Digmon and drill our way out, dagyaa!" Armadimon explained.  
"Hey, guys? Didn't the fire extinguish a second ago?" Jou noticed that there was still light in the cave.  
"Look over there!" Gomamon pointed out. We turned around and saw the wall behind us had collapsed and there was a Digimental lying right there! We ran up to it and got a better look at it. It was purple and white with a sort of light blue glass like thing and had a silver cross on it. "Jou… I think this might be your Digimental!"  
"You really think so? Okay…" Jou walked up to it and waited a few seconds before he grabbed it and picked it up. Jou was surprised that he was able to do that before he noticed his Digivice beginning to morph into a new one with a silver colored side.

"What do you say we get out there and show the Kaiser who he's messing with?" Gomamon asked. We all nodded.  
"Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" Digmon went up to the rock blockage and drilled his way through before he blew the rocks away and we ran out once more. "Miss us, dagyaa?" Shellmon threw his foot forward and grabbed Digmon and tried to crush him.  
"Digmon…" I foolishly stepped forward once more.  
"Watch out!" Jou warned. Shellmon tried to blast me with that hydro pump attack of his but Digmon jumped in the way and sheltered me from any harm.  
"I'll protect Iori, dagyaa!" Digmon groaned in pain. Shellmon then stomped his foot on Digmon's back but he refused to collapse. He then turned onto his back exposing his belly and me, but also his drills. "Gold Rush!" The drills nailed right on target and destroyed the Evil Ring.  
"Alright!" Jou and Gomamon shouted.

We looked around to see that the tower was still standing but the Kaiser was nowhere to be seen. That was the least of our worries as a large shrimp like Digimon jumped out of the water above us.  
"Watch out! That's Ebidramon!" Gomamon warned but it was too late. The controlled Digimon got his claws around Digmon and dragged him under the waves of the water!  
"Digmon!" I cried. "He doesn't stand a chance in the water!"  
"Well, then it looks like we've only got one thing to do. Gomamon, are you ready?" Jou asked.  
"Let me at him, Jou! I can take him." Gomamon replied. Jou nodded.  
"Digimental Up!" Jou shouted.  
"Gomamon, Armor-Evolve! Sincere Waves, METALSEALMON!"

MetalSealmon looked like a mix of a seal and a giraffe because he had a long neck and was almost twenty feet tall! He also had a clear dome on his neck that looked like maybe someone could fit in it. No time to think about that, Digmon is in trouble! MetalSealmon jumped into the water and it was hard to see, but I think he wrapped himself around Ebidramon, forcing him to release Digmon who floated back to the surface.  
"Hydro Sphere!" We heard an attack be yelled from under the water and then a massive geyser of water shot upward with Ebidramon flying into the air.  
"Now, finish it you two!" Jou cried.  
"Gold Rush!" "Hydro Sphere!" A large bubble of water filled in his mouth before he shot it forward and both attacks hit thus destroying the Evil Ring!

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We ran up to the base of the tower where all those Yukidarumon were waiting for us.  
"We're up for a fight this time! V-mon, let's go! Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" Three Yukidarumon tried to freeze him but he jumped into the air and avoided the attacks. "Knuckle Fire!" The three attackers were quickly knocked down.  
"That's it!"  
"Fire attacks work well against the Yukidarumon!" Ken noticed.  
"Let's leave this to Daisuke-kun!" Takeru said. Fine by me.  
"We'll do our part from the air!" Hikari informed.  
"Right!" Miyako agreed. All four of them took to the skies and the tower was essentially wide open.  
"Curse of the Queen!" "Needle Rain!" "Mach Impulse!" "Teter Spin!" All four of them worked in perfect coordination and quickly took down the tower, thus ending the battle.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

The others regrouped with us and we headed back to the TV and home.  
"Gomamon, we leave this place to you." Jou explained to him the plan.  
"Yeah, from now on, I'll protect this place." Gomamon nodded.  
"If anything happens, I'll come right away."  
"Okay."  
"Well then, let's go home!" Takeru said.  
"Ah… there's something that's been troubling me…" I spoke up.  
"What, Iori-kun?" Jou asked.  
"For formality's sake… I'm Hida Iori." I bowed.  
"What's the point of doing it now?" Daisuke questioned.  
"No, I must finish what I began."  
"Iori-kun is just like Jou-san… so conscientious and sincere." Hikari noticed.  
"He's like Koushiro-san too, like his thirst for knowledge." Takeru also said.  
"One filling two roles… what a dependable junior!" Jou sounded proud.  
"Heh, Mr. Dependable." joked Daisuke.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser was truly upset about today's events. Not only did another one of those children Armor-Evolve but he also lost an area that he had only conquered less than a few hours ago.  
"The area I just acquired…" He tightly gripped the arm rests of his chair. "It's time for a new strategy, Monodramon. What do you think the next move should be? Well!?"  
"You told me not to speak…"  
"Answer when you're spoken to!"  
"I'm sorry!"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

We returned back to the computer lab in preparation to head back home, proud of a good days' work.  
"Serves that Digimon Kaiser right! He must be peeved about losing the area he just got!" Daisuke boasted.  
"But this is only just the beginning." Ken informed.  
"Jou-san, please visit us again." I asked.  
"Don't worry. Now that I have my Digimental, I'll try to give you juniors a hand any chance I get."  
"Also, please come by my home sometime. My grandfather would like to meet you."  
"Really? Well, then…"  
"I want to go too! I've heard you have the best ohagi!" Hikari jumped into the conversation.  
"If Hikari-chan goes, I'm going too!" Daisuke added.  
"Daisuke-kun, you can't."  
"Why?"  
"Because you and Chibimon would eat my part too!"  
"Chibimon, you're not coming."  
"Eeh? You're mean, Daisuke!"  
"Ah, I can ask my mother to make enough for everyone…" I explained.  
"Then I'm going too!" "Me too!" "If you'll allow me…"  
"Eh? Takeru too?" We all laughed at Daisuke's shocked expression.

Just another normal day for us Chosen Children…

* * *

And that was Chapter 7.

Quick thing that I've noticed and the Digimon Wiki agrees but in the original episode, why is Ebidramon still fighting when the Dark Tower goes down?

Anyways, I'm exhausted. See you all next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	9. Forest Guardian! Konteimon!

Hello again. Back as usual.

Shoutout to **DalekDavros** and **Kelrisathefiredemoness** for your faves and follows.

And shouts to **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96** for another round of reviews.

Anyways, what's Mimi been up to these past two weeks?

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Forest Guardian! Konteimon!**

 _Tachikawa Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. April 20th, 2002. 0424 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Mimi Tachikawa_

I splashed water on my face in the bathroom as I woke up from the same nightmare yet again. That's the third time this week! It's always me in a dark place and that phrase that keeps repeating. _'Mimi… why did you abandon me?'_ I hear Palmon say. I then turn to see her with blood red eyes and one of those rings around her neck before she attacks me and I wake up. Is this my subconscious feeling guilty about everything? I know I already am.

Everyone else has returned to the Digital World and found their Digimentals and are busy risking everything fighting that Digimon Kaiser… while I've just been acting like a normal school girl who's on the cheerleading squad. And all of this because I'm scared of worrying my parents all over again. Ugh, why didn't I just not tell them? Then everything would've been so much easier. I could be able to help Palmon and the others without fear of my parents getting upset with me for disobeying them. This is just a large mess I've found myself in this time. I crawled back into bed and tried to go back to sleep, hopeful I don't have that nightmare again.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At the Motomiya Residence, Daisuke was sleeping peacefully in his messy room after he fell out of his bed during his sleep. The alarm began to ring which woke up Chibimon but not him.  
"Daisuke?" Chibimon looked over to the bed and saw that Daisuke wasn't in it. He looked back to the floor and saw him down there. "Daisuke! Daisuke!" Nothing. The boy was snoring louder than the alarm. "Daisuke! Daisuke!" He jumped off the bed and began to bounce on Daisuke's stomach. "Daisuke! Daisuke!" Daisuke eventually woke up and saw Chibimon sitting on his stomach with a big smile on his face. "Good morning, Daisuke."  
"Ah… good morning, Chibimon…" He slowly got up. "My stomach… hurts a bit…"

At the Iori Residence, Iori was getting dressed for the day while listening to Beethoven's _'Symphony No. 9'_ before he soon noticed that Upamon was missing.  
"I wonder where Upamon went…" Iori said to himself. He opened the door to the living room and saw Upamon on the table with a wicker fruit basket over his head while his mother had her back turned from him. "Upamon?" Upamon turned around to look at Iori before he jumped back over to him.  
"Iori!"  
"You can't wander around the house on your own!"  
"Your mom is making something weird!"  
"Something weird?" He looked to see his mother cutting up some food. "Oh, that's kanpyomaki." He explained as he walked back into the room.  
"Kanpyomaki?"  
"Yeah, Miyako-san asked for it. Kan-pyo-maki." Iori pronounced.

At the Yagami Residence, where Ross and Taichi had left thirty minutes earlier, Hikari was in her own room packing somethings into her backpack. She had now had the room that she and Taichi once shared for a few months now ever since she complained to her mother about some personal issues. The whole family knew exactly what she was meaning and Taichi packed up his stuff and transferred over to the guest bedroom, which he and Ross normally shared now.  
"Am I going in there too?" Tailmon asked as Hikari was humming a song.  
"Yeah, Tailmon! Come on, in you go!" She picked up Tailmon and put her in, causing the cat Digimon to complain as she was trying to fight her way out.

Across the bridge, Ken was having some difficulties getting out of Tamachi by bike… as he was being pursued by a couple of overzealous fan girls.  
"I'm beginning to think those girls are just camped outside your apartment building!" Wormmon shouted from inside the duffle bag that Ken had wrapped over his back.  
"I think you might be right! I wish these girls would take the hint that they're being way too forward!" Ken cried as he made a jump over the sidewalk as he now made it to the Rainbow Bridge before heading his way to the elementary school in Odaiba.

At the Takaishi Residence, Takeru was heading out as well.  
"I'm leaving!" He told his mom as he begun to walk out the door. "Oh wait! I forgot something!" He quickly went back inside and grabbed his bag. The bag began to twitch and move.  
"Takeru! You forgot about me, how could you?" Patamon cried from the bag.  
"Sorry, Patamon."

Finally, at the Inoue's convenient store, Miyako was stocking up on food.  
"Three with tuna-mayo, two with bonito, one orange drink…" Miyako was telling off her list to her mother who was working the register.  
"And what's this for again?" She asked.  
"Like I said, this is for the computer club's picnic…"  
"Three tuna-mayo, two bonito, one orange drink…" Mrs. Inoue finished reading off the long list. "And where are you going?"  
"Add two jam buns. And I told you, we haven't decided yet."  
"That's kind of suspicious…"  
"No, it's not!" The two of them stared down each other for a few moments before Miyako ran for the door. "Bye, Mom!"  
"Miyako!" She was already out the door. Miyako's bag suddenly began to make noise as she was at the street corner.  
"Miyako-san!" Poromon cried from the bag.  
"Oh, no! Poromon, are you okay?" She asked as she opened the duffle bag to see Poromon buried under a bunch of food and drinks.  
"I'm find, but please try to be gentle!"  
"Sorry, sorry…"

"What are you doing, Miyako-san?" Takeru asked her as he and Iori ran up to her.  
"Come on, let's go!" Iori insisted. The three of them headed to the school where they met up with the other three members of their group.  
"Did you wait long?" Miyako questioned as they arrived.  
"About time…" Daisuke muttered.  
"Well, I guess everyone's here now." observed Ken.  
"Alright, time to go picnic!"  
"Yeah!" Everyone shouted. They all then quietly began to sneak into the school building as they were planning to get to the computer lab.  
"Why do I have to sneak into the computer club if I'm already in the computer club?" Miyako groaned.  
"We have no choice, the use of school facilities is prohibited during weekends unless stated otherwise." Iori reminded. Daisuke quickly shushed the two of them which they remembered.

When they opened the door, they found themselves looking at a familiar face.  
"Koushiro-san?" They all questioned.  
"Good morning, everyone." He said.  
"What are you doing here?" Ken asked.  
"Keeping watch for Ross-san and Taichi-san right now."  
"Wait, they're in the Digital World?" Takeru inquired.  
"Yeah, and well, Ross-san at least, is not happy. Something about you all should be more focused on destroying Dark Towers like they're doing right now and not going on a picnic." The computer genius explained.  
"Hey, we've been working hard this entire week! We deserve a bit of a break!" Daisuke defended.  
"That's probably not how Ross-chan would see it." Hikari muttered.  
"Look, let's just go. Excuse me, Izumi-senpai." Miyako moved him aside and got her Digivice out. "Chosen Children, let's roll!" They were just about to go when the door slid open again. The children turned and while the newer Chosen Children looked on the verge of panicking, the experienced members were completely calm.  
"Mimi-san?" They all said in a somewhat surprised tone.

 _P.O.V. – Mimi Tachikawa_

"Mimi-san?" The newer Chosen Children questioned.  
"Was I interrupting anything?" I asked.  
"Not really. Daisuke-kun, Ken-kun, Miyako-san, Iori-kun… This is one of the earlier Chosen Children, Tachikawa Mimi!" Takeru introduced me.  
"Aw, Sora-san told us about you!" Miyako said.  
"Well, she's told me all about you guys during our lunch periods." I replied.  
"Bingo…" She muttered.  
"What's with that?"  
"We were just about to go to the Digital World." Daisuke informed.  
"I guessed that considering you're all technically not supposed to be here today. Patamon, Tailmon, you look well."  
"Thank you!" They thanked.

"Um, Mimi-san? What exactly are you doing here today?" Koushiro asked.  
"I… um… I wanted to go to the Digital World." I admitted.  
"Judging from that tone, I assume there's more going on there." Ken guessed.  
"Is Palmon in trouble?" Hikari suddenly looked worried.  
"No… I haven't gotten any emergency messages like some of the others, but I am worried about her." I explained.  
"Your parents don't know you're here, do they?" Takeru figured it out, much to the new kids confusion.  
"No, my cousin is having her wedding tomorrow and well, my parents assumed I was going to go hang out with her before her bachelorette party tonight which I'm not allowed to attend."  
"I don't understand." Iori spoke up.  
"Let's just say, my parents and the Digimon have a rough relationship. Besides, I'm feeling pretty guilty about being the only Chosen Child who hasn't gone to the Digital World yet."

"Well, then come along with us!" Miyako exclaimed.  
"Miyako, you don't get to decide that…" Daisuke told her.  
"Eh? She can't?"  
"No, I'm fine with it, but…"  
"I agree." "Me too!" "Same here!" "Let her tag along." The others agreed.  
"Bingo, bingo, bingo!" Miyako excitedly cheered. I smiled. At least I'll visit one time... "Chosen Children, let's roll!" The light from the screen brightened and all of us excluding Koushiro were sent to the Digital World.

The light dimmed down and I could now see I was in the Digital World once more. I checked to see if what the others said was true and sure enough, my clothes had changed. I was now wearing a blue and red T-shirt that exposed my midriff that had a white stripe across the chest and a yellow star in the middle. I also had a white skirt and tall white boots with beige platform heels and a cute maroon strap on each.  
"Dark Towers…" I heard Daisuke say. "None!" The others sounded relived. I was more just admiring the fact that I was back, and it made me happy. I looked to the ground and saw a large purple flower and for a second there… I saw it turn into Palmon who stood up and looked at me with her green eyes and a happy smile on her face.  
 _"_ _Mimi!"_ God, if you could, please let our paths cross today.

We soon began marching up the hill while the others explained to me what I had missed. I wasn't too lost, thanks to Sora and the others telling me what was going on at school.  
"So why are we in an area without any Dark Towers?" I asked.  
"Because we're planning to have our picnic here." informed Miyako.  
"A picnic in the Digital World? We'd never have thought of it in our time." Wait, our time? Good grief, I sound like my grandmother! "Times change, huh?" There it is again!  
"We only came here to destroy Dark Towers until now. But we've been working hard these past two weeks; we thought we could have some fun in the Digital World for once."  
"Of course, Ross-san and Taichi-san would argue against that." Ken spoke up. "They're currently going after towers as we speak, I believe."  
"Daisuke-kun, can we have lunch?" Takeru wondered.  
"Isn't it too early?" He claimed.  
"I'm hungry…" Hikari admitted. Daisuke suddenly stopped in his tracks.  
"Let's have lunch!" Well, that was quick.  
"What's that about?" Takeru muttered to himself.

We pulled out a picnic cloth and began to pull out our food.  
"I got some onigiri from our convenience store… Want one?" Miyako offered.  
"Thank you." I took it from her.  
"Hawkmon, you?"  
"I will have… those." He pointed to the kanpyomaki that Iori and Armadimon were eating.  
"Kanpyomaki?"  
"Iori-san, a kanpyomaki, please."  
"Okay, dagyaa!" "Don't throw it!" Iori's order to Armadimon was too late as he threw it and flew past the bird Digimon before rolling down the hill.  
"M-my kanpyomaki!" Hawkmon ran after it while Miyako ran after him.  
"My mother made this food, you shouldn't treat it like that." Iori scolded.  
"Iori… sorry, dagyaa…" After a couple of minutes, I started to wonder what happened to Miyako and Hawkmon as they didn't return so I got up to look for them.  
"Miyako-chan! Hawkmon! Where are you?" I called out. "Miya-" I suddenly felt the whole ground underneath me open up and soon I felt like I was falling before everything went black.

"Mimi-san?" "Mimi-san?" I slowly began to regain consciousness as heard voices calling my name and someone shaking my arm.  
"What…?" I opened my eyes.  
"She woke up!" "She's awake." I looked to see two familiar faces.  
"Miyako-chan… Hawkmon…" I looked around to see we were still in a forest but it was dark and looked like it was night time. "Where are we?"  
"Look at that." Miyako pointed ahead to a black obelisk over the forest. "That's a Dark Tower."  
"This is the Digimon Kaiser's territory." Hawkmon informed. Suddenly we heard a lot of chattering sounds and a whole bunch of red eyes beginning to stare at us from up ahead. They got closer before it was soon revealed it was a whole horde of Gekomon and Otamamon. Of course, the red eyes could only mean one thing, though…  
"Gekomon and Otamamon!" I shouted.  
"You know them, Mimi-san?" Miyako asked.  
"Yeah, they're my friends..."  
"Not anymore, not with those Evil Rings on them!" Hawkmon saw what we were all seeing.  
"Run!" I shouted as the whole horde began to chase us.

This was similar to my nightmares. I was worried about finding Palmon with an Evil Ring and her attacking me but this is just as bad. We ran down a hill as fast as we could but I'm pretty sure they were gaining on us. Sadly, though stylish as they were, this outfit of mine was not truly built for high speeds on uneven terrain as I suddenly found myself falling forward because I tripped on something.  
"Got you!" The horde called out.  
"Noo!" Miyako cried. "Those freaky frogs and tadpoles are gonna get Mimi-oneesama!" Oneesama? Miyako sees me as an older sister? Hmm, I'm touched.  
"Miyako-chan, run away…" I told her. _"I'd never thought I'd be in a position to say that…"_ I suddenly found myself tangled up not in the fins of the Gekomon and Otamamon but rather vines… very familiar looking vines. "Palmon?" The three of us were dragged into the bushes as the Gekomon and Otamamon ran on by.

"Looks like they're gone." Palmon informed. I couldn't help myself but let tears fill my eyes. My prayers had been answered and even better, Palmon wasn't victim to an Evil Ring like my nightmares showed.  
"Palmon…" I said through the tears.  
"Mimi… Mimi!" Palmon was crying as well.  
"Palmon!" We ran to each other and embraced one another.  
"I've missed you!"  
"Me too!"  
"How've you been?"  
"It felt like you were calling me, Palmon!"  
"I also knew you'd come to the Digital World somehow… You came to help us, right?"  
"You better believe it… at least for today…" I admitted. Both of us stopped crying.  
"What do you mean, Mimi? This forest is under the Digimon Kaiser's rule and the Otamamon and Gekomon have Evil Rings on them… not to mention the rest of the Digital World, and you're only going to come once?"  
"I'm sorry, Palmon. I promise you we'll destroy that Dark Tower and free the Otamamon and Gekomon."

"Mimi-san, we can't do this all alone." Miyako said.  
"Miyako-san, please contact Daisuke and the rest." requested Hawkmon. Miyako pulled out her devices but got nothing.  
"Come on, pick up the signal! Damn it! We're not getting anything!"  
"So we're on our own…" I sadly admitted.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Miyako!" "Hawkmon!" "Mimi-san!" The others were calling out trying to find where the two girls had vanished to. Daisuke soon felt his Digivice vibrating and pulled it out.  
"Daisuke-kun? What's wrong?" asked Ken.  
"Over here, guys!" They gathered around him and saw a dot flash on his screen but it was faded. "I think it's a message from Miyako, but…"  
"It's coming through, but it's weak…" Takeru observed. "Where did they go?"  
"Maybe the Digimon Kaiser got to them?" Iori feared and the rest soon joined him in that feeling.

The Kaiser hadn't gotten to the girls, but was well aware of their plight as he had them on his monitor at the moment.  
"Looks like this weekend just turned around." He was referencing the fact that a tower had already been destroyed a few hours ago by Taichi and Ross and they were currently threatening another one. However, he decided that dealing with the girls would be easier and much more fun. "Monodramon."  
"Wh-what?"  
"Who do we have in that area?"  
"The Gokimon Brothers."  
"I see…" The Kaiser began to laugh.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"It's no use… we can't reach anyone." I sighed. I then suddenly remembered what Mimi was saying earlier. "Hey, Mimi-san? What did you mean earlier by this will be like the only time you'll be able to help?" Mimi sighed.  
"I'm a fool." She said. "I'm a fool because I can't do anything right."  
"How so?" Hawkmon asked.  
"It's my parents… after our previous adventures; I didn't really explain anything to them as they never pressed me about it. As it turns out, because I didn't explain anything, I nearly ended up moving back the United States. Vamdemon's invasion and me going to fight the Dark Masters and Apoclymon terrified them. That's why they wanted to move, to try and get as far away from Digimon as possible. Last Monday, us older Chosen Children agreed that we need to tell our families about the Digital World being in trouble again… and my parents were once again afraid, and that's my biggest concern! I want to help save the Digital World again, but I don't want to put my parents through that hell again."  
"And the only time thing?" Palmon questioned.  
"My parents will probably send me to live with my grandparents in Nashville, or my aunt's family in New York while Dad tries to look for a job in the states again."

Our conversation was interrupted when we heard rustling in the bushes near us.  
"Hey ladies, what's got you down?" Two voices said at the same time. "How about a date with us?" We turned and what we saw made us scream.  
"Noo! Cockroaches!" Mimi and I held each other in fear while Hawkmon and Palmon stared down the two large cockroach Digimon that had Evil Rings around their antenna.  
"Don't even think about it!" They replied.  
"That hurts, man…" One of the roaches said. "Big Gokimon brother!"  
"What is it, little brother?" The other Gokimon asked.  
"Since they hurt us, let's get them!"  
"That's a good idea."  
"You guys are brothers?" I questioned.  
"The Gokimon Brothers! You got a problem?" They both shouted.  
"I don't."

"Now then, big Gokimon brother, your special attack."  
"No, no, little Gokimon brother, you go first."  
"You get along well, huh?" Mimi noticed.  
"We Brothers sure do! You got a problem?" They shouted again.  
"I don't."  
"Okay then, big brother, let's attack together."  
"That's a good idea, little brother."  
"Dream Dust!" They both cried and we were suddenly buried under a pile of garbage!  
"What is this? It's just garbage!" Mimi angrily exclaimed. The brothers only laughed.  
"What's going on?" I asked as I finally reached to top of the pile… and found a whole piano crashed right in front of us.  
"It's not just garbage…" We looked up and bolted before a refrigerator crashed on top of us.

We were once again running trying to avoid all the stuff they were dropping on us. It was practically everything but… no wait, there's the kitchen sink.  
"Palmon, can't you evolve!?" Mimi questioned.  
"Not until we destroy that Dark Tower!"  
"Isn't this easy, big brother?"  
"It sure is, little brother?"  
"I guess even the Evil Rings don't stop brotherhood!" I observed. _"It'd be kind of beautiful… if Mimi-san and I…"_ My mind drifted to the idea of Mimi and I being sisters. I mean, I still love Mantarou, Momoe, and Chizuru, but for whatever reason, I kinda feel more of a connection to Mimi right now.  
"What are you fantasizing about?" Hawkmon brought me back to reality. "Do you understand, Miyako-san?! We are in big trouble right now!"  
"Sorry, sorry! Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!"

"Miyako-san!" I hopped on to Holsmon's back as we took to the skies.  
"Let's go, Holsmon!"  
"Miyako-chan… you look pretty cool…" Mimi said as we flew away.  
"Red Sun!" Holsmon launched his counterattack which hit both roaches.  
"Big brother, are you okay?"  
"I'm okay, little brother…"  
"Okay, let's get serious!"  
"Right, we still have the advantage!"  
"Gokimon Brothers Kick!" They both came right for us. We dodge but that was our mistake. "Got ya!" We turned to see one coming back for us which we avoided as well, but Holsmon was kicked in the stomach by the other one who ambushed us.  
"Ahh!" Holsmon roared in pain as I was knocked off his back and fell to the ground before.  
"Miyako! Poison Ivy!" Palmon quickly grabbed me before I was able to hit the ground but it dragged her down the hill.

"Ow…" We groaned.  
"Are you alright?" Mimi asked as she ran down the hill after us.  
"Yeah, but what about Holsmon?" I asked. We looked up and it was starting to look like he was getting overwhelmed. "He needs help!"  
"But I can't evolve!" Palmon complained.  
"Maybe you can… What's that over there?" Mimi pointed behind us. We found ourselves looking at a small Shinto shrine with a familiar object in it.  
"A Digimental!" I cried. It was a green one with a purple shuriken on the bottom of it.  
"Mimi!" Palmon seemed to notice something about it.  
"The Crest of Purity!" Mimi recognized the symbol.

"Mimi-chan! Holsmon needs help! You've got to lift that!" I cried.  
"But…" She hesitated.  
"Mimi-chan, listen to me! You're one of the nicest girls I've ever met. You're worried about putting tons of stress on your parents while also wanting to help the Digital World. That's the most considerate thing I've ever heard. If my parents found out, I wouldn't care as much because they wouldn't stop me from doing this. But you want consider your parents feelings and that's why I admire you so much! But you can't be afraid to stand up for yourself and what your heart believes is right! That's what Sora-san and the others have taught me."  
"Miyako-chan…" She smiled. "You're right. I sometimes forget it, but I need to fight my own battles, even if I don't want to." She then looked to the Digimental. She walked up to it and after coming to grips with herself again, she picked it up and it began to glow. She looked to her Digivice and saw it turn into a new one with a light pink side. She then turned to Palmon who nodded with her. "Digimental Up!" She shouted.  
"Palmon, Armor-Evolve! Roots of Purity, KONTEIMON!"

Konteimon was quite a unique looking Digimon. She had large roots for legs, a pink flower around her neck, moss covered arms, and the shuriken part of the armor was around her head.  
"Holsmon! Lead them back here!" Mimi called out to him while she led me closer to the Dark Tower. "See those search lights? What do roaches hate the most?" She asked me.  
"Bingo!" I replied. Holsmon followed the orders he was given and flew back towards Konteimon.  
"Strike Root!" Two giant roots shot out of the ground and swatted the two bugs hard to the ground in front of the Dark Tower.  
"Don't think we're done!" The brothers defiantly yelled.  
"Think again!" Mimi and I replied as we turned two search lights on them, blinding them both.  
"Ahh!" The covered their eyes.  
"Now, Holsmon! Shuriken Toss!" Konteimon tossed the shuriken off the back of her head and the large object collided with the brothers and pinned them against the tower.  
"Red Sun!" Holsmon fired and caused a massive explosion that hit the brothers and destroyed the tower! Mimi and I gave each other a high ten.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"My territory has shrunk!" The Kaiser growled as he now saw he lost three towers, two in just a few minutes apart. "So much for a nice weekend." He walked away. "I'm going home." He informed Monodramon.  
"Osamu-chan… what happened to you?" Monodramon quietly muttered under his breath. At the same time, Ross and Taichi had returned back to the computer lab.  
"Well, that was a good job." Taichi said.  
"Love to see the look on the Kaiser's face after what we did." Ross chuckled. They turned to Koushiro who had a very nervous look on his face. "Hey, Koushiro, what's wrong?"  
"We have a guest." He pointed behind them and they turned around to see sitting at a chair was Takeo Juriuchi.  
"Takeo…" Ross muttered.  
"I'm gonna love hearing the bullshit excuse you're going to try to weave." He said.  
"Aw, jeez…" Taichi groaned.

"Followed you guys because I've been noticing you guys keep coming back here ever since the semester started and was wondering what the hell was going on. Didn't actually expect it would be related to those ghost Digimon that captured everyone back two years ago."  
"I explained a bit to him after he twisted my arm." Koushiro admitted.  
"Look, Takeo, meet us at our apartment later, we'll explain everything." Taichi told him.  
"Actually, this might be a good thing."  
"Huh?" All three boys looked at Koushiro.  
"Look, us coming to the school is clearly drawing attention, so I've been thinking, what if we had some sort of better place to meet?"  
"Like a base or something? I guess so, but what does this have to do with Takeo?" Ross questioned.  
"Takeo-san? How good are you with computers?"  
"Pretty decent, I once overclocked our home computer so we could play games." Takeo told him.  
"You guys, I think Takeo can fill a roll as a sort of over watch. Keep an eye on the computer while we go, keep us informed about the Kaiser's movements while we're in the Digital World…"  
"You mean like an AWACS?" Ross interrupted. "I think you might be right…"

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

The skies began to clear up and now it looked like it was day when the Gokimon brothers crawled out of the dust of the destroyed tower without their Evil Rings.  
"Looks like they woke up." Mimi said.  
"Yeah." I nodded.  
"Big brother, what are you doing here?"  
"Well, what about you, little brother?"  
"Big brother, you ate my chocolate!"  
"Shut up! You ate my daifuku!"  
"What!? Gimme back my chewing gum!"  
"Gimme back my crackers!"  
"You want some?"  
"Bring it on!" The two began punching and kicking each other as they flew away.  
"They used to get along so well, but look at them now…" I noticed.  
"Maybe they were better off being controlled by the Digimon Kaiser…" Mimi believed.  
"I don't want to think that, but… you might be right…" I admitted.

"Miyako!" We heard Daisuke's voice and saw him and the others approaching with all of the now freed Gekomon and Otamamon.  
"Our Evil Rings are gone too, ribbit!" "Mimi, thank you, tama!"  
"Mimi." She turned to look at Palmon.  
"What?"  
"I'll be the guardian of this area." She sat down and hugged her.  
"Good luck, Palmon. I promise you I'll help you no matter what happens with my parents."  
"We're all counting on you!" We all replied to Palmon's plan.  
"W-well, I'll do my best…" She rubbed the back of her head.

"This concludes today's picnic!" Daisuke shouted as we got back home. Koushiro messaged us about Ross's friend who found out about us, but that was being taken care of. We all soon began parting our ways before I remembered something I wanted to say.  
"Mimi-san!" I shouted as she walked way. "Today… meeting you… was… really fun!" She smiled before she held up her finger like me.  
"Bingo!"

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

I was getting ready for bed after a long day of work: destroying the towers before having to explain everything to Takeo. He followed along and agreed to whatever Koushiro's plan was involving. Something about it getting him something to do out of the house. So at least that was one problem taken care. I suddenly got a message on my D-Terminal and it was from Mimi. _'Had long heart to heart with parents. Count me it!'_ Sounds like she finally got them on our side. Nice to hear that you found your courage to face your parents and follow your heart, Mimi.

Now I wish I could just find my courage and follow my heart in order to ask you out…

* * *

So, quite a few things to sift through there.

First, Takeo comes back into play and more or less will take over Koushiro's role in terms of keeping an eye on the Digital map while the others are in the Digital World.

Secondly, both involving Mimi, first the original episode took place during Golden Week but there's no way Mimi was going to be left out until the first week of May. As for her outfit, it's the same one she wore in the original episode, just the hair is different; being her normal color and in a large ponytail.

Well, that's been said now, see you all next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	10. Trapped Behind Armor! Andromon!

Chapter 9, folks. Had this one done in the middle of the night, but got distracted through the afternoon to edit.

Shoutout to **SkylanderZilla** and **FROSTDRAGON4875** for their faves and reviews.

Also got a lot of reviews, thanks **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96**.  
To **God of the Challenge** , please, Ken would kick everyone's ass on Mario Kart... I though I'd love to see him bring me down in Ace Combat or Rogue Squadron. I earn those Ace Medals!  
And **Matsky** , she's there because I didn't want to sideline the original gang. The writers gave all the older children excuses on why they weren't helping everyday. Taichi has soccer, Yamato with his band, Sora and tennis, Jou's got all his schoolwork, and Koushiro had to watch the computer for those in the Digital World. But it looked like they couldn't come up with something for Mimi so they moved her to prevent her from helping often.

Eh, I've ranted enough, let's move on.

* * *

 **Chapter 9: Trapped Behind Armor! Andromon!**

 _Digital World. May 4th, 2002. 1640 Hours._

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Today was the day that I and a lot of the Chosen Children were waiting for. For the past couple of weeks, we had been poking the sleeping bear that was the Kaiser; now we were giving him a sucker punch. Today every single Chosen Child had cleared their schedules so they could focus on destroying Dark Towers. This was first time that all thirteen of us were going to attack at once, and boy were we going all out for this one.

Koushiro, Ken and I came up with a grand plan for this momentous occasion. The plan was to pick a large region under the Kaiser's control and knock out a large number of towers, more than we've ever done in a day. Operation: Sledgehammer's goal was to destroy over thirty-nine towers in one day; each Chosen Child with the goal of taking down three on their own. I knew we probably wouldn't get that but that was the grand goal, if everyone takes out at least one, that'll be great.

We got started early this morning and really put the hurt on the Kaiser's forces. All these attacks at once has to be stretching him severely. He may be a self-proclaimed perfect person, but he couldn't keep watch on every area being attacked at the same time. At the same time, Takeo had eased into his role of keeping us updated about the fighting and watching the computer when we go to the Digital World brilliantly. He kept messaging us; keeping us informed about how everything was going and redirecting some of us to assist the others who may have gotten held up or having some difficulties achieving their objectives. I think he sees this kinda like a real time strategy game, which, hey, whatever helps him.

Right now, Waibanmon and I were on our way to a rocky desert to assist Iori who was having some trouble taking down his second tower.

"Hey, Iori-kun!" I cried out as we flew down towards him. "Need a hand?"  
"Thanks, Ross-san. Digmon's trying to get to that tower but…" He explained.  
"Too many ground forces, but none in the air… One moment. Waibanmon?"  
"Say no more." Waibanmon took us high in the sky before we stared down the tower. "Waiban Flame!" The flames doused the tower and Waibanmon dived on it like he was a Stuka. "Steel Swipe!" A quick fly-by and the Dark Tower was tipping over before crashing, freeing the area from the Kaiser's control. We returned back to Iori and Armadimon.  
"I could've handled that, dagyaa!" The armadillo sounded jealous.  
"You kept them off our back, it doesn't matter who takes it down, so long as it goes down." Guilmon told him.  
"Come on, I think that's all we can do for today, some of the others are already heading out." I patted Iori on the back as we headed towards the nearest TV. "You did great today, Iori-kun."  
"Thanks again, Ross-san."

We got back to the computer lab and almost everyone was there except for Sora, Mimi and Jou who must have left a bit earlier.  
"Twenty-six towers. If that doesn't piss off that Kaiser, I don't know what will." Takeo told us what damage we caused. That was better than expected; over two-thirds of the objectives were accomplished. And here I was worried we might be launching our version of the Somme Offensive.  
"And good thing, too, since I won't be able to come tomorrow…" Koushiro said.  
"Me neither, I have band practice…" Yamato informed.  
"Well, it'll be fine with Hikari, Daisuke and the rest." Taichi believed.  
"Think you can handle the rest without us?" I asked.  
"Just leave it to me!" Daisuke boasted.

 _Dome City, Digital World. May 5th, 2002. 1721 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

I swear, we bite off more than we can chew sometimes. One of the places in the region that wasn't targeted yesterday was this giant domed city that kinda looked like a snow globe in the desert. It looked calm from the outside, but that was our mistake. In truth, this whole place was swarming with Guardromon and we were nowhere near the Dark Tower. We just kept fighting through horde after horde of them with an alarm blaring 'Intrusion' all throughout the city.

"Gold Rush!" "Shooting Star!" "Precision Sting!" "Knuckle Fire!" Our Digimon were launching many attacks and destroying many Evil Rings, but the swarms just kept coming!  
"What's with these guys?" Daisuke questioned.  
"They keep coming and coming… do they ever stop?" wondered Miyako.  
"I think this place might be a central hub for the Kaiser's forces through the entire region. In short, I think we wandered into the hornet's nest!" Ken theorized.  
"They'll just keep wearing us down like this." Iori noticed. "We should go back!"  
"I agree!" I said.  
"We're outnumbered, we should retreat!" Miyako also agreed.  
"Retreat?" Daisuke was disbelieving what we were saying. "Why are you being so weak? The Dark Tower is right there!"  
"I'm getting hungry…" "M-me too…" All of our Digimon were beginning to devolve as they clearly had enough.

"Daisuke-kun! We should go back and come up with a plan with Koushiro-san and Ross-san!" Takeru tried to convince Daisuke to fall back.  
"Tentomon may have new information for us." I believed.  
"There's no choice…" Daisuke finally admitted. "Retreat!" We turned the corner down one alley where the TV was and Miyako held up her Digivice to open the gate. One by one, the others were sent back home and soon it was my turn, but at the last second, a Guardromon ambushed us from above and one of its Destruction Grenade blew the TV apart in front of Tailmon and I!  
"Hikari! Run! This way!" Tailmon shouted. This was bad; the TV was destroyed so that meant we couldn't go back to the Real World, at least here. We ran away and found another alley to hide in while I sent a message to the others at least informing them that I was okay.  
"And send…"  
"Hikari, if anything happens, I'll Armor-Evolve. I can still fight."  
"Okay! Thanks, Tailmon."

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Due to the fact that we were trying to get out fast, it meant that our return was more painful as we were all collapsed on top of each other.  
"Wh-what… did something just explode?" Miyako questioned the last sound we heard as we got back.  
"I saw it! A Guardromon attacked!" Patamon shouted.  
"Huh? And Hikari-chan?" Daisuke looked around. Suddenly we noticed she wasn't with us.  
"It can't be…" Iori came to a shocking realization. "She's still in the Digital World?" I quickly checked the computer.  
"Nothing… that gate isn't opening anymore." I informed.  
"Takeru, wasn't Hikari-chan right behind you?" accused Daisuke. Takeru nodded with a guilty look on his face. "What were you doing? You should have helped her!"  
"Daisuke-san, it's not Takeru-san's fault." Iori tried to defend.  
"Shut up, kid!"  
"Please don't talk to me like that."  
"S-sorry."

"No… Daisuke-kun is right." Takeru spoke up. "It's my fault… if I had been more careful…"  
"Well… when you put it that way…" Daisuke admitted. "None of us noticed… not even me…" We soon heard a chiming noise coming from the computer.  
"An e-mail from Hikari-chan!" Miyako informed. "'I'm okay. Don't worry.'" She read.  
"Miyako-san, just a second!" Takeru moved her over. "Even though we can't go to that area, we can get there from the area next to it. I'm going!" He declared as he activated a gate to an area right nearby the city.  
"Wait, Takeru!" Patamon tried to warn but both of them went to the Digital World.  
"I can't just leave it to them!" Daisuke argued. "Let's go, Chibimon!"  
"Yeah!" Now Daisuke and Chibimon were on their way.

"Poromon, we're going too!" Miyako said.  
"Wait!" Iori stopped her. "It's almost dinner time. If Hikari-san and the others don't return, I'm sure their families will be really worried."  
"Good point, Iori-kun. And what about our families? Heck, I should be riding back to Tamachi as we speak right now." I informed.  
"Right. So, we must first tell Taichi-san and the others about this."  
"And tell our families we'll be coming home later than usual."  
"You're right…" Miyako rubbed her head. "I'm the oldest here so I should know better…"  
"Let's hurry up then!" Upamon cried.  
"Before things get worse…" feared Wormmon.  
"Let's go!" Poromon shouted as all three of them were practically out the door!  
"Wait!" "Stop!" "Don't go out on your own!" We all called for our Digimon.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Ugh, perfect chance to be Hikari's knight in shining armor and stupid Takeru has to go and ruin it. The two of us were walking across the desert dunes as we were heading for the domed city.  
"Hey, Takeru." I got his attention.  
"What?"  
"The sun's going down already. You can go home."  
"It's fine. My mother is coming home late today plus she already knows about the Digimon. Your parents don't know though, so won't they get worried if you don't come home?"  
"Eh, they won't care." I sighed. I mean, if I don't show up by morning, maybe, but if come home at midnight or something, they'll not be that concerned. My biggest problem right now is saving Hikari and trying to keep Takeru from taking all the glory. My brain then hatched a brilliant idea. I dug in my pocket until I found exactly what I was looking for. "Okay, who will go save Hikari-chan?" I told him. "We'll decide with a coin." What he doesn't know is that this is a two headed coin, which means I can't lose. "Heads, you go home. Tails, I go home." I flipped it then caught it to reveal that it was on heads. "Heads! I'll save Hikari-chan."  
"Is that right?" He then swiped the coin of me! "Both sides of this coin are hears, right?" Uhh… "They sell them at Kadoetsu." He smiled.  
"You knew?"

"Daisuke-kun. Drop the act, will ya?"  
"Act? What act?"  
"Don't think that I'm oblivious to what's going on. You want to save Hikari-chan all by yourself because you really like her." Shit! He figured it out!?  
"What are you talking about?" I tried to worm my way out, but he wasn't buying it. "Alright, you caught me! I like Hikari-chan, okay! She's nice, she pretty, she's caring, she's the perfect girl! What guy wouldn't like her?! I know for a fact you do, now don't you hide it!"  
"I do… for the same reasons. There are very few girls like her." We both sighed now. "Look, Daisuke-kun. Let's not turn this into a stupid rivalry. Hikari-chan needs help and its better we go together in there." I admitted, the chances would be higher. We slowly began walking towards the dome. "Hikari-chan in the end will choose who she likes; if she likes you, I'll live with it. Would you do the same if the roles were reversed?"  
"You mean, if she picked you? I guess…"  
"Alright, at least it's nice we came to an agreement… and you know there might be a good chance that she doesn't care about either of us in the way we want and only sees us as friends."  
"Oh gods, I hope not."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

While the two boys were walking for the city, Hikari and Nefertimon were trying to find an escape route out of the city, which was difficult as the city was well aware of their presence and they were trying to keep ahead of the entire Guardromon garrison.  
"Nile Jewelry!" Nefertimon shot down a few missiles that were coming their way. "Just where is the TV?" She questioned as they looked high above the city.  
"As I thought, there are no more TVs in this area…" Hikari feared. "We have to get out of here somehow."

Meanwhile, the Kaiser was enjoying the precarious situation the young girl found herself in.  
"Osamu-chan… shouldn't you go home?" Monodramon asked.  
"Didn't I tell you not to call me that!?" roared the Kaiser.  
"I'm sorry!" He clutched his head as he expected pain coming, but it never came.  
"I just had a good idea… let's test him." The Kaiser pressed a few buttons and a screen began flashing some digital codes.  
"That code… Perfect-Level?" Monodramon sounded very nervous.

"Ah, Taichi-san? Good evening, this is Hida Iori." Iori spoked over the payphone outside the Inoue's convenient store to the Yagami Residence while Ken was standing next to him.  
"Miyako, when your brother or your sister gets back, can you ask them to watch the store?" Miyako's father asked her as she was gathering some items.  
"Okay, got it!"  
"Listen, that's the situation…" Iori finished explaining things to Taichi and Ross.  
"I see… so Hikari is…No, you don't have to apologize." Taichi said.  
"Hang on, we're on our way." Ross informed.  
"What was that?" Yuuko asked.  
"Hikari's ended up behind enemy lines, we're going to rescue her."  
"Don't worry too much, Mom, we'll have her back in a few hours." Taichi assured her. Of course Yuuko would be worried for the safety of her own daughter, but she trusted her sons.  
"Be careful, okay?" She requested. Both of them nodded.

The two of them ran outside where they ran into Yamato who was looking for them.  
"Guys, did you hear from Iori and Ken?" He asked.  
"Yeah… we have to hurry." Taichi replied. "But, before that, we should let Daisuke's parents know…"  
"At least that he's going to be out late." Ross reminded.  
"Leave that to me." Yamato offered. "You guys go and help Hikari-chan."  
"Right. We're counting on you then!" Taichi nodded before both boys ran off. Yamato then came to a realization when they were out of earshot.  
"I was supposed to make Dad's supper today… Oh well." He ran to Daisuke's apartment.

"I called my house and told my parents that I would be coming home late tonight. What about you two?" Ken asked Iori and Miyako.  
"I told my mother the same thing as well, Ken-san." Iori answered.  
"Well… I think Dad asked me to do something…" admitted Miyako. "Oh well, let's go." They started to walk while Ken just began to run. "Wait, we're running!?"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

The sun had already set by the time we reached the dunes directly overlooking one of the city's gates. The place looked beautiful at night from the outside; too bad inside was a nightmare.  
"The entrance is right there, but…" I noticed a lone Guardromon at the entrance.  
"We have to defeat that one to break in." Daisuke finished my sentence.  
"We have to do it in one blow. If he sounds the alarm, we'll be in trouble."  
"Alright! Daisuke!" V-mon was ready to do the job.  
"Yeah!"  
"Wait!" Patamon shouted. "Takeru, there's no Dark Tower in this area, right?"  
"Yeah, it's just the one inside that dome."  
"That means…" Oh now I understand.  
"Right! We don't need Armor Evolution! Let's try it out!"  
"Yeah! Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"

"Alright! You could evolve normally!" I knew he could, but with the Kaiser, there weren't any guarantees. I have to admit, that felt amazing to see him do that after so long. Even better was the looks on V-mon and Daisuke's faces. Daisuke's jaw was practically on the ground.  
"Angemon…?" Daisuke was dumbstruck. Angemon took off and began flying right towards the lone guard.  
"Intru-"  
"Holy Rod!" Angemon threw his rod that destroyed the Evil Ring before the Guardromon could even finish giving out the alert. "Now! Hurry up!" We ran up to the gate that Angemon would bust open and we would walk inside.  
"No welcoming committee so looks like we're okay for now." I observed.

"That Angemon… Patamon can also evolve like Agumon?" Daisuke tried to figure things out.  
"Of course, if there's no Dark Tower." I told him. "You forget I was one of the original Chosen Children."  
"Right, right… So that means… Hikari-chan's Tailmon too…"  
"Technically, yes, but Tailmon isn't a Child-Level like the rest of our Digimon. She's actually an Adult-Level like Angemon."  
"When she evolves, she becomes Angewomon." Angemon informed.  
"A-Angemon and Angewomon!?" Daisuke I think is now feeling like his chances with Hikari are falling apart. As I said before though, that's gonna be up to her. Although… I wouldn't mind if she picked me. Nah, too young to worry about love right now. Give it a few years. "V-mon! Then you have to become UltraAngemon!" Looks like we accidently struck a nerve there. "Do it! You have to! Put your mind to it!" Daisuke picked up his partner and shook him.  
"B-but that's impossible!" V-mon cried. I shook my head. He's still got a lot to learn.

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

I had to stop by Taichi's just to ask his mother which apartment Daisuke lived. After I got the address, I walked up another few levels and then knocked on their door. When it opened up, I was greeted by Jun so I explained the lie to her.  
"So yeah, Daisuke-kun is playing at my little brother's house, so…" She was still keeping that same smile on her face since the moment she found out it was me. She then giggled after I finished talking. "What?"  
"You're lying, right?" Oh, crap. "I see it in your face, Yamato-kun." Oh this is not good at all. "It's alright; I'll tell them what you told me. In exchange, you take me out on a date, okay?" She then closed the door right in front of me.  
"D…date…?" I muttered. Oh, Daisuke, what did your stupid ass get me into now!?

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

The Digimon were eating the food I picked up from the store while I waited in the computer lab for Iori and Ken who were on the lookout for Taichi and Ross.  
"This is not a kanpyomaki!" Poromon complained.  
"Don't be selfish…" I told him. The door opened up to reveal Iori.  
"Taichi-san and Ross-san are here." All four of them walked in.  
"Sorry we made you wait." Taichi apologized.  
"That's okay." Ken said. "Now, shall we get going? I'm feeling terrible right now just letting Daisuke-kun and Takeru-kun go by themselves."  
"Don't worry, we're going." Ross gave him a pat on the back and we all headed out.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Digimental Up!" Daisuke shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON! Knuckle Fire!" We proceeded forward into the city in the hopes of running into Hikari as fast as possible. However, the Guardromon were well aware of our presence now. Fladramon took down two of them while Angemon and I went up in the air to try to spot her. "Daisuke, hurry up!"  
"Easier said than done!" He tried to keep up. I looked at my Digivice and it was picking up Hikari.  
"We're close." I said.  
"Hold on tight." Fladramon grabbed Daisuke and began jumping great heights in order to keep up with us.  
"There! It's Hikari-chan!" Daisuke shouted as he seemed to have spotted her. I saw her too but then one of those Destruction Grenades detonated near her sending Nefertimon to the ground before she devolved back to Tailmon. Both of them were in trouble but thank the heavens we got here just in time.  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" "Knuckle Fire!" Both Evil Rings on the two Guardromon were destroyed, saving Hikari.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"Daisuke-kun! Takeru-kun! You came back!" I cried to the two boys who were coming my way.  
"Did you hear that, Takeru? She said 'Daisuke-kun' first!"  
"Good for you." I think Takeru was being snide with him about that comment. Angemon turned his attention back to another Guardromon coming our way.  
"Holy Rod!"  
"Come on, Hikari-chan! Hurry up!" Daisuke insisted. We started to run forward but our path was suddenly blocked by an all too familiar Cyborg Digimon. "This guy's different…" Even Daisuke knew things were off about this.  
"Andromon!" I called out.  
"You know him?"  
"Yeah, he's a Perfect-Level Digimon we encountered in last adventures."  
"P-Perfect-Level!? And have you notice the Evil Ring on him!?" Yep… there was a ring around his neck… and if a Perfect could fall under the Kaiser's control… we were in trouble.

"Andromon…" I whispered.  
"Kaiser-sama's command: exterminate the Chosen Children with extreme prejudice." Andromon coldly stated. 'Exterminate?' I knew the Digimon Kaiser was insane… but… how far is he willing to go? That doesn't really matter right now, what matters is Andromon in front of us. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel that I need to do what I'm going to do next.  
"Stop, Andromon! Don't you recognize us?"  
"What are you taking about, Hikari-chan?" Daisuke didn't fully understand. "Fladramon, bust through him!"  
"Leave it to me." He jumped up to launch his attack. "Fire Rocket!"  
"Spiral Sword!" Andromon's attack crashed into Fladramon hard and caused him to devolve back to V-mon.  
"V-mon!" Daisuke ran over to him. "Hey, hang in there!"  
"It's the first time I've seen such a strong attack…" V-mon groaned.

"Daisuke-kun!" Takeru hopped off Angemon and ran over to him while Angemon covered them.  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" The attack did next to nothing to Andromon.  
"Spiral Sword!" And like with Fladramon before, when Angemon was hit, he devolved back into Patamon and fell in Takeru's arms.  
"I knew Perfect-Level would be too strong and my Holy attacks wouldn't do much to him…" Patamon muttered.  
"Can someone explain to me this Perfect-Level!?" Daisuke demanded.  
"It's the evolutionary level above Adult, which means, we can't take him on!" Takeru informed.

"Andromon, have you forgotten that you fought on our side?" I stepped in front of the boys.  
"Hikari-chan, we don't know if it's the same Andromon from that time!" Takeru tried to tell me.  
"I know he is."  
"Even if he is, he's controlled by that ring! Your voice won't reach him!"  
"That's not true!"  
"What are you doing? We have to run!" Daisuke interrupted as Andromon walked towards us. However, he suddenly stopped.  
"Now!" Tailmon shouted as all three Digimon jumped him and knocked him down. Except, I could've sworn I saw a red beam hit him before.  
"We did it!" V-mon and Patamon cheered.  
"That beam just now…" Tailmon noticed too.

We turned to see Holsmon and Tetermon coming right towards us with Miyako and Ken on their backs; from the ground, Digmon burrowed out.  
"Full stomach and full of energy, dagyaa! Here goes… Gold Rush!" He fired his drills towards Andromon who was getting back up but they just bounced off his armor to Digmon's surprised. "No effect at all!"  
"Hikari! Are you okay?" I heard Ross's voice yell. I now turned to see Taichi, Ross and Iori approaching.  
"Onii-chan! Ross-chan! It's Andromon!" I told them.  
"Andromon, it's us! Taichi!" Taichi ran up in front of us all.  
"Taichi…" Andromon said as he stared at him before that ring around his neck was starting to spark. Is it malfunctioning or is he fighting it?

It was hard to tell because he roared in pain before charging forward and looking right down at me. He then reached down and grabbed me.  
"Hikari!" Everyone shouted as they got closer.  
"Wait!" Tailmon warned. I kept my courage, even though Andromon could easily squeeze the life out of me right now. All he was doing was holding me over him so I was looking down at his red eyes.  
"Andromon…" I whispered once more.  
"Hikari…" He said. He's… he's fighting it! He's fighting the influence of the Evil Ring! I just need to keep pushing him.  
"Remember the picture we all took together?" I had some tears forming and one fell on his helmet.  
"Picture…" My Digivice just fell off of me and connected with the ring, causing a great blinding pink light. "Yes… Everyone… We took a commemorative photo…" His eyes suddenly turned from red to his normal kind, indicating that he was free of the ring's influence!

He gently placed me back down before he took a view of his surroundings.  
"I have… been controlled by this?" He grabbed the ring and pulled it apart.  
"Andromon!" I cried. He smiled and nodded, indicating that he was back to normal. He then turned to look to the Dark Tower in the distance.  
"Dark Tower… how dare you… Gatling Missile!" He fired his missiles that flew across the city and turned the tower in to rubble, freeing all the other Digimon controlled by the Kaiser in the city. As we began to walk for the doors and the TV back home outside the city, I noticed all the Guardromon were still.  
"Hey… will the Guardromon be broken forever? Can they get back to normal?" I asked.  
"They will be fine. If we change the program that was modified by the Evil Rings… They will revert back to normal." He walked up to one and a few wires came out of his arm which seemed to work on the Guardromon. "And then… we will protect this city so the Kaiser will never have his way again."

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

When we got back home, we were welcomed by a very upset looking Koushiro who had his eyes closed.  
"Izumi-senpai!" Miyako exclaimed. "Why are you here?"  
"Shh! Be quiet." He said. We all quietly snuck out of the school. I swear, that prospect of some kind of base is getting better by the day. How we haven't been caught yet by the faculty amazes me. "Yamato-san told me what happened. I checked the gate sensor on my computer and found out the gate was still open. If a teacher found out and turned off the power, what would you have done?"  
"You're right, we should've left someone on watch." I admitted.  
"Hey, let's keep it at that… You just wanted to come too, didn't you?" Taichi said.

"Taichi-san!" Koushiro dismissed his anger as he seemed to remember something. "Right… I just got an e-mail from a friend in America…" Koushiro began to speak.  
"This your same friend who says in elementary school but claims to take classes at UCLA?" I remembered that kid that informed Koushiro about Diablomon during that whole mix-up.  
"Yes… anyways, I had asked him for some analysis on Miyako-kun and the rest of our Digivices, and he sent me the results. Well, first things first, all of us Chosen Children who had Digivices before that had morphed into the ones that Miyako-kun, Iori-kun and Daisuke-kun carry are exactly the same. My theory of them being slightly different was wrong. Digital, Detect and Discover. Names with those meanings were stored as information. Since all begin with 'D', we'll call them 'D-3' from now on. There are other interesting things I learned, for example…"

"I'm hungry, Daisuke!" Chibimon loudly interrupted as we heard his stomach growl. Then another one growled.  
"M-me too…" Daisuke admitted.  
"Koushiro, you can tell us more tomorrow." I told him.  
"In the meantime, we should go home now or we'll be in trouble. We're really late for dinner!" Taichi reminded. We all picked up the pace and ran for our houses, or in Ken's case, he got his bike and pedaled like a bat out of hell back to Tamachi.  
"Oh, by the way, Daisuke-kun, Yamato gave your folks a lie about where you were, so just say you were at Takeru-kun's." Koushiro told him. Daisuke suddenly stopped.  
"Wait… he went to my house… Did my sister answer?" Daisuke looked worried.  
"Yeah, why?"  
"Oh, gods… Yamato-san is going to kill me…"

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

"You were really late today, Yamato…" Dad said as I finally was putting dinner on. "If I knew, I would've gotten us take-out or something."  
"It's fine, I'll make it." I insisted.  
"Did something happen?"  
 _"_ _I have a date… I swear… I'm gonna kill Daisuke."_ I thought to myself.  
"Hey, Yamato, something's burning." I came back to reality and realized I was burning the meal.  
"Damn it!"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Hey, Onii-san? I brought you some dinner?" I called outside his bedroom door. I got back a few minutes ago and Mom asked if I could bring Osamu's food for him. Like usually, I didn't get much of a response. I headed back to my room with a bit of extra food on my tray for Wormmon.

I swear, I wish I knew what Osamu was doing in there all day…

* * *

Be careful what you wish for there, Ken... you might not like the answer...

Again, major change in this chapter similar to Ebidramon two chapters ago, why does Angemon devolve as soon as he enters the city? None of the other Digimon were doing that.

Anyways, see you all next time for the chapter we're all waiting for.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	11. Tyranny Unmasked! Deltamon!

It's the chapter a lot of us have been waiting for.

Shout out to **hainesbr944** and **The Wizard of Runes** for the favorites and follows.

And of course, shout out to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , **agumonfan7** and **GreenD109** for the reviews.

Oh, and before I forget, thanks to MadDog as well for guest writing in a few sections.

Now... let's get going.

* * *

 **Chapter 10: Tyranny Unmasked! Deltamon!**

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 9th, 2002. 1735 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

It was a quiet day in the Digital World for once so we were taking this opportunity to get a bit of rest; in this case, some of us were watching Daisuke and his soccer team practice. We watched as Daisuke made an impressive slide tackle that knocked the ball away and didn't actually make contact with the player. The ball rolled over to Taichi who stopped it while many of the onlookers were cheering.  
"Daisuke, nice play!" Taichi complimented. Eh, not bad…

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Gather around!" Coach blew his whistle, probably telling us to pack it in for the day, it's almost dark already. "This Saturday, we're having a practice game. Our opponent is the Tokyo Youth Soccer Tournament champion, Tamachi Boys F.C." Everybody gasped about that, well, almost everyone. The others were shocked that we were going to play the champs; I was more surprised because a certain someone played on that squad.  
"Coach, isn't that the team where that genius kid plays?" One of my teammates asked.  
"Yeah, Ichijouji Ken."

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 10th, 2002. 1515 Hours._

"Tamachi Boys F.C.'s Ichijouji Ken, nicknamed 'The Rocket' for the speed of soccer balls that are kicked by him, had a record of forty-five goals in the last tournament, which led his team to victory." Miyako read off an article on the computer in the lab.  
"Amazing… that's twice the previous record!" Taichi was impressed.  
"You could've done that easily if your team wasn't garbage and you were the only one doing anything." Ross said. Taichi shrugged his shoulders. "Jordan didn't win six rings by himself; he had Pippin and Rodman giving a hand."  
"Hard to believe that we actually know Ken-san and he can do stuff like this." Iori was impressed.  
"This'll be a great game tomorrow, and he'll be a great opponent." I declared. "We didn't face off in the last tournament."  
"If you had made it to the finals, you would have, right?" Takeru pointed out. We knocked out real early in the tournament.  
"Don't remind me…"

"Can you win?" asked Hikari.  
"It's not about winning or losing." I said. "Right now, all the boys who play soccer in this country want to be like him. Just thinking about playing against him makes me excited!"  
"'Not about winning or losing?' That's all it's about!" Ross cried.  
"Uh, c-calm down, Ross-san!"  
"Don't bother, he gets really competitive. He and his dad will scream at the TV during a game." Hikari explained.  
"Well, those refs should keep the damn flags in their pockets!" Ross shouted.

"Hey, Dai-chan~!" Miyako gave a singsong tone.  
"D-Dai-chan?" I muttered. She's never called me that before. She grabbed my hands.  
"When you play Ken-chan, can you get me his autograph?"  
"Uh, Miyako-san? Two things: One, you already know him, so can't you just ask yourself? And two, I thought you said you didn't like younger boys?" Iori spoke up.  
"First, Iori, I need his autograph to be outside of anything Digimon related, or it won't seem as genuine and two, what's one year? My mother is three years older than my father anyway."  
"Uh… Miyako? You're being quite forward with your feelings for Ken today." I pointed out.  
"I am… wait, this isn't a dream?" She realized. We all nodded and her face turned red so fast that she buried it into her hands. "If you say anything to…!" She yelled in her hands.  
"We won't, Miyako-san." Takeru assured her.

"How's about we all go tomorrow and support you?" Hikari suggested.  
"Really?" I asked.  
"Not me, I'll root for Ken." Ross flashed a toothy smile.  
"Traitor."  
"Hey, got to pick a winner. Besides, won't he feel bad if all of his friends are there but aren't rooting for him as well?"  
"We'll root for both of you." informed Taichi.  
"We're going too, Daisuke!" Chibimon cried.  
"Alright! I'll show Ken what I'm capable of!" I shouted.

 _Odaiba Bayside Field, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 10th, 2002. 1520 Hours._

Few minutes before game time. The team was currently stretching as we were getting ready for the tough game today. I looked behind Coach to see the crowd and the others who were all sitting together. Miyako and Iori brought Poromon and Upamon while Chibimon was sitting in Hikari's lap. She and Takeru left Tailmon and Patamon at their homes. Wonder if Ken is gonna bring Wormmon, eh, probably not. There are already a few people with cameras here and the last thing Ken could probably need is for Wormmon to be caught on camera.

"Do your best!" "Get 'em!" "Good luck, Daisuke!" "Try not to lose so badly!" I appreciated their words of encouragement, well, almost all of them. A bus horn filled the air and a large team bus rolled up above the stands.  
"Here they come." I muttered. There was a bunch of girls right next to it, probably all big fans of Ken. The doors opened up and the team started to walk out… without Ken. "Huh? Where is he?" I questioned to myself. That question was answered as Ken finally walked out and the girls lost it, Miyako included. The team then walked down to the opposing bench before Ken spotted me and waved me over to the middle of the benches.

"Glad to see you made it." He said.  
"And miss a chance to play you? I'd have to be dead, that's the only way that I'd miss this."  
"Well, I wish you the best of luck. Hey, listen… considering this is just an exhibition, my team came to the agreement that we'll play you guys easy and keep it close. We'll still win in the end, but we won't utterly crush your team, you okay with that?"  
"Are you kidding? If we're gonna play, I want you to go all out!"  
"Daisuke-kun, I'm warning you, it's gonna be pretty if we go all out."  
"I don't care, this is a game no matter what, so I don't want you to play down to us!"  
"Motomiya-kun! Game's about to begin, get back over here!" Coach shouted.

It was now less than a minute before the first whistle and we were all beginning to line up. Ken was in front of me on the opposite side of the line.  
"Play hard, you two!" "Give it your best shot!" "Good luck!" "Blank him, Ken-kun!" The others yelled from the stands.  
"Well, Ross-san isn't being subtle about who he's rooting for today." Ken noticed.  
"Yeah, everyone else is trying to root for the both of us to keep it fair, but Ross-san…"  
"Last chance, Daisuke-kun. I can get very competitive." He told me.  
"I said it before; give me your best shot." He sighed as he shrugged his shoulders.  
"Okay, then." The whistle blew and like a flash of lighting he was already past me with the ball and running past the rest of my team. He kept great control of the ball and then when he was close to the goal, he kicked the ball hard and it bounced off the pole. However, that must have been his plan as our goalie was now on the ground trying to block the edge of the goal where the ball almost went in and one of Ken's teammates head-butted the ball into the mostly exposed goal. In less than fifteen seconds, we were down one-nothing. Maybe I should've taken his offer…

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

I warned him. He wanted me to play with my all so I'm giving it to him. I quickly looked to the stands for the entire half and the others were almost completely dumbstruck by my playing abilities. Truth be told, even I don't know how I do this sometimes. Those forty-five goals from the tournament were like a blur. When the whistle blows, most of my mind shuts down and is completely focused on the game. It's like falling into a rage. When the halftime whistle blew, I came back to reality, looked to the scoreboard and noticed we were now up nine-one. Daisuke's team was already a wreck by the end of the half, but I'm impressed with Daisuke. He's still fighting while the rest of his team has mostly given up, heck; he even scored a goal on me!

I walked over to him as he was still lying on the ground, panting trying to catch his breath after a hard slide tackle he did on one of my teammates.  
"You okay?" I asked as I held out my hand to help him up.  
"Yeah… I'll be fine." He leaned over as he was still trying to get some more air.  
"I did warn you."  
"You should've just ignored me and did what you were offering!"  
"You would've gotten mad at me if I played down to you." I defended.  
"True."  
"Still, you've been playing great. Not many are able to score a goal when I'm defending them."  
"Thanks, that means a lot coming from you. By the way, I wanted to ask this earlier, but did you leave Wormmon at your place?"  
"Yeah, he wanted to come, but with those photographers following me around, I thought it was a bad idea."  
"That's what I thought too. "

I walked back to our bench and wrapped a towel around my neck and took a sip of water. All of a sudden, I heard multiple gasps and excited screams from some of the girls in the crowd. For a second, I wondered if somebody famous had come down to watch the game, though what would a big-time celebrity be doing at an elementary school soccer exhibition game? I knew that no one on the team was related to someone famous. Foolish me, I should've been asking myself that question because I do know someone else who's famous. I had to rub my eyes for a moment to make sure I was seeing right and sure enough, standing at the top of the steps was my brother, Osamu.

He began to walk down the stairs before he looked over and saw the others. He then stopped and looked at them for a moment with a strange look on his face. He then quickly regained his composure and walked down the stairs again, with a nonchalant, almost goofy, look in his eyes as the girls were trying to swarm him. He smiled softly at them before he made his way to the bottom seats right behind our bench.  
"He's so cute!" "He can tutor me anytime!" "I want to have his baby!" Wait, what!? I swear, these fangirls are insane sometimes; it almost makes me lose my lunch. Every time Osamu shows up to a scene, you'd think it was Justin Timberlake or some other person from a boy band had just stepped out of a limo.

"Onii-san, you came." I smiled at him as he took his seat behind our bench. This was a rare occurrence because Osamu was usually too busy to come to any of my games. It always kinda bothered me but I knew he was with me in spirit, though that slightly died down over the years as he got more and more in to his studies. The look he had in his eyes showed that he wasn't entirely here by his own will.  
"Yeah, sure. Whatever, Ken." He took off his glasses and began to clean them. "Mom asked if I could come to watch you and I was feeling bored so I figured it was something to do for the day." He may have been reluctant about it, but him being here meant a lot.  
"It's still nice to see you."  
"Just crush these insects so I can go home soon, I have important things to take care of."

I nodded confidently before rejoining the team for the second half. I felt slightly exhausted but Osamu's sheer presence re-energized me in a way that I felt like I could run through a brick wall if I wanted to. With a blast of the whistle, we were off once more. Again, everything went like a blur of weaving in and out of defenders, reorganizing our formations, and kicking the ball into net. We were down to the final minute and up twenty-one to one with me scoring over eight goals alone. I snickered to myself seeing the defeated look on Daisuke, it was actually very amusing. Never had he looked so crushed and helpless in the time I had known him so far. But I also knew he wasn't one to give up and that was certain as he still kept playing the full ninety like we were tied, even if the rest of his team had all but quit.

As I dribbled the ball down the field, I quickly looked back towards the stands. The others were still cheering, but Ross was surprisingly quiet, and for good reason, because he was missing. Another quick check and it turned out he moved over to where Osamu was sitting and quietly chatting with him. I soon got my head back in the game as Daisuke came hard from the side, trying to cut me off on the outer edge to force a turnover but I wasn't going to let him have it that easily. The two of us battled back and forth for control of the ball until Daisuke collided with me after trying to come in with a tackle, sending the two of us crashing out of bounds and close to the stands. The final whistle blew, signaling the end of the game and our victory, but my concern was the loud gasp that the crowd shared as the two of us got back up. I checked to see if I was hurt but I could only see that the two of us were a bit dirtied up.

"Ow." A familiar voice said. I now suddenly realized the gasp. I turned back and saw that Daisuke had slid into Osamu and his cleats had cut the lower part of his right leg, just above his ankle. He had three large cuts running slanted and bleeding, though not that much for a true medical emergency but rather one of the more typical injuries that players get on the field. I myself had one like that last June; hurts like hell but won't leave any permanent damage. The glare that he gave Daisuke sent shivers even down my own spine.  
"Sorry, my bad. I didn't mean to do that." Daisuke apologized. One of the officials had ran up with a first aid kit and was tending to Osamu's leg.  
"It's just a simple cut. It'll be fine." Osamu kindly informed him, as if that glare had never existed.

After a few minutes, everyone was already gone. I, Osamu and the rest of the Chosen Children excluding Iori, who was still in the stands with the Digimon, were at the top of the steps talking to each other.  
"Well, Ken, you certainly live up to your reputation… I can't compare to you at all." Daisuke admitted. Must have been hard for him to concede defeat.  
"As I said earlier, you've been quite the opponent to play today, better than most."  
"Well, opposing you was the main plan."  
"You played a great game, Daisuke-kun." I held out my hand for him to shake it. "I actually pity anyone that plays you."  
"Thanks, that means everything."  
"Come on, Ken, we've got to get back home before Mom has dinner ready." Osamu insisted.  
"Take care everyone." I said as we all said our goodbyes and walked different ways. "Hey, Onii-san? Quick question. What were you and Ross-san discussing?"  
"Oh, just catching up. The conversation was most… interesting…" What was with that pause?

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 12th, 2002. 1213 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Daisuke. Give me your right hand." Miyako demanded. Huh?  
"L-Like this?" I held it out.  
"If I hold your hand, I'll be closer to Ken-kun."  
"This again? Look, when he comes here, just shake his damn hand!"  
"No! It can't be like that way! It has to be like I don't know him! Besides… my aesthetic sense won't let me shake hands with Daisuke!" She shouted.  
"What's that supposed to mean!?" I shouted back.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"What's going on?" I asked as I walked into the computer lab before letting Wormmon out of my bag.  
"Ken." Daisuke walked up, dragging Miyako by the arm before he grabbed my hand and made me shake hands with Miyako. "There, you're welcome." He said to her while she looked like she was going to pass out from sheer embarrassment.  
"Do I even need to know what that was about?"  
"You do not." Takeru told me.

"This is…" Iori muttered as he looked at the screen.  
"What's wrong, Iori?" Upamon asked.  
"Look at this." The Digital map showed a single black box in a sea of white boxes.  
"A Dark Tower in such a place?" Hikari wondered.  
"It wasn't there yesterday." Takeru recalled.  
"The Kaiser must have built it today." I theorized.  
"What kind of place is it?"  
"'Death Valley'… which means 'Shi no Tani'." Iori informed.  
"But there's nothing in that place, which is why it's called that!" Wormmon explained.  
"Well, if that's the case, then why is it in the middle of nowhere?" Hikari questioned.  
"What's the Digimon Kaiser planning?" Takeru said.  
"He could be setting up a foothold in order to expand from there." believed Iori.  
"Well, we can't let him do that. Let's take that thing down!" I determined.  
"Right." Hikari nodded with me.  
"Let's go, guys!" Takeru shouted.

When we arrived to the area, it was a dead as we were told. Just rocky formations all over the place, quite desolate and quiet, and that what was so unnerving about it.  
"There really isn't anything in this place…" Hikari noticed.  
"Look! There it is!" Daisuke pointed ahead to the tower.  
"But we have to be careful. We don't know if there are enemies hiding somewhere." Takeru warned.  
"That's true." Iori agreed. We began walking towards the tower with nothing going on until Miyako made a quick gasping noise before we turned around to see that she and Hawkmon were gone.  
"Miyako-san!" Hikari called out.  
"Hawkmon!" Tailmon shouted. Suddenly, all the rest of them were swallowed up by the ground leaving only Daisuke and myself!  
"Guys!" I cried.  
"What's going on!?" Daisuke asked.

"Be careful, Daisuke! It could be a trap!" V-mon advised.  
"I think we're past the point of 'could'!" panicked Wormmon. Daisuke fell to the ground and began trying to shovel the dirt under us.  
"Can I get a hand!?" He asked and I followed suit.  
"Daisuke, Ken! Shouldn't we call Taichi and the others?" V-mon questioned.  
"No! It'd take too long!" I told him.  
"Damn Digimon Kaiser…!" cursed Daisuke.  
"You seem to be in quite a bit of trouble…" A voice rang our across the area. Daisuke seemed to know who it was in a heartbeat.  
"Digimon Kaiser! Is this your doing!?"  
"I'm holding your dear friends. If you want to see them again, you better hurry up."  
"Let's move!" I ordered as we ran straight for the voice.

We soon found ourselves in a rocky canyon and standing right on the edge above us was the Digimon Kaiser himself. Hard to believe this is my first time actually seeing him in the flesh. He looked down upon us and laughed.  
"Well done…" He clapped his hands.  
"Where's everyone!?" Daisuke demanded.  
"Can't you see them right in front of you?" He pointed further down the canyon and at a sort of natural bridge was the others tied up and hanging from it.  
"Guys! Are you alright!?" I called out to them.  
"Daisuke-kun, Ken-kun, sorry!" Hikari apologized.  
"We were careless!" Takeru admitted.  
"Be careful, guys!" Iori warned.  
"Hurry up and help us, you two!" shouted Miyako.  
"Right away!" Daisuke nodded.

"Stop right there!" The Kaiser ordered as we were about to run to them. "Don't you care about your friends' lives…?" Wait, where's he going with this? "Come out, Deltamon!" The ground began to rumble and the large hill behind the others suddenly exploded as a large menacing Digimon came out of the rubble and roared. It was a large deep purple dinosaur like Digimon with its hands replaced with a metal and skull heads.  
"Deltamon! A Dragon Digimon with a metal head on his right arm and a skull head on his left arm! His special attack is Triplex Force!" Wormmon informed.  
"It's time to feed Deltamon… and your friends will be his meal."  
"What!?" Both Daisuke and I shouted while the others were screaming in fear.  
"You sick bastard!" Daisuke insulted.  
"We'll never let you do that!" I told him.  
"Let me? Who do you think you're talking to?" The Kaiser asked. "Your friends' lives are in my hands now…"

"If you want to save them… let's see… Bow down to me."  
"What!?" V-mon was insulted by that suggestion but we didn't have a choice. Both of us fell to our knees. If we have to grovel and beg just to keep the others alive then so be it. Both of our Digimon were shocked that we were just giving up like this.  
"Please… let them go…" Daisuke said.  
"'Please'? You mean 'I beg you'."  
"I beg you… please let them go." I took over the begging.  
"V-mon! Step on their heads!" The Kaiser ordered. V-mon hesitated to follow that.  
"It doesn't matter. Do it, V-mon." Daisuke told him.  
"But…"  
"Everyone's lives depend on us… you've got to do this, V-mon!" I insisted. V-mon gulped before he finally did as he was told.  
"Sorry… I'm sorry, you guys."

All the while this was happening, the Kaiser was laughing like it was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life.  
"This is such a pathetic scene; I may just release them…" As long as you release them, I don't care about my pride at all, you monster. "But, it can't be everyone…" Gods above, there's always a catch! "Deltamon is very hungry after waiting so long. And since he has three heads… you can only save one… you two can choose."  
"What!?" "You can't!" We cried once more as Deltamon roared again.  
"I'll give you the length of this hourglass to decide." He held up an hourglass. "If you don't answer by then… they will all die."

What do we do? How do we pick even one of them to save?!  
"Guys! Don't worry about me, choose someone else!" Hikari cried.  
"I'll sacrifice myself! Pick someone else!" offered Takeru.  
"I don't want everyone to die! I don't want to be the only one who's saved!" Miyako yelled.  
"Daisuke-san! Ken-san! We'll accept your decision!" Iori said.  
"Wh… what do we do?" Daisuke was at a loss for words.  
"Ken-chan? Do you have a plan?" Wormmon asked.  
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" I shouted. If I had more time, I could maybe come up with a plan to defeat Deltamon and free the others, but time is not on our side. Come on, Ken! You're smart! Think of something!  
"How do we even choose…?" V-mon muttered.  
"If you don't hurry up, your time will be up!" The Kaiser reminded. "Are you going to risk all of them? You're not worthy of friends… Just like it's always been…" What did he mean by that? Never mind, come on. I looked back to the others and then suddenly it hit me.

"I've decided!" I told him. Everyone turned their eyes to me, especially Daisuke who was probably shocked that I decided without consulting him at least.  
"And? Who have you decided will live?" The Kaiser asked.  
"None of them." I smirked. Everyone, even the Kaiser was taken aback by what I had just said.  
"Have you lost your mind!?" Daisuke roared.  
"No, I haven't. I pick none of them, because that's not any of them!" Now was the wave of confusing. "You almost had us there, Digimon Kaiser, but there was one little mistake in your plan. Uh, Tailmon, when did you get your Holy Ring back?" Daisuke and the others suddenly noticed too. Thank goodness for my keen powers of observation, I guess that's how I'm so dominant on the field. Looks like I was right as the Kaiser growled.  
"Damn it… I had you groveling at my feet! Even so, I'll still take pleasure in destroying you!" He snapped his fingers and the others soon began morphing into ghost Digimon.  
"Those guys look familiar…" Daisuke muttered.  
"Those are Bakemon! Very nasty Ghost Digimon that are shrouded in mystery! Their main attack is the vengeful Hell's Hand!" V-mon explained.

Deltamon and the Bakemon were moving closer towards us before Deltamon's foot fell into the ground, as if it stepped into a pit trap. That's exactly what happened as Digmon revealed himself right nearby.  
"Digmon!" Daisuke shouted. I turned around and saw the others flying in.  
"Holsmon! Nefertimon! Pegasmon!" I called out the others.  
"Daisuke-kun! Ken-kun! We're alright!" Takeru said as the others ran up to us.  
"You idiot! Why couldn't you hold them for a little longer!?" I heard the Kaiser yell. Not at us, but at someone that was near him. "Whatever, now you're all here, so you can now all die together! Deltamon! Bakemon! Crush these insects before me!"  
"Not on your life! Let's go, V-mon!" "You go too, Wormmon!"  
"Got it, Daisuke!" "Right, Ken-chan!"  
"Digimental Up!" We shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" "Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!"

"Bakemon! Sweep them from the skies! Attack Pattern Mu!" The Bakemon followed his orders and flew towards our flying Digimon. "Attack Pattern Theta!" The Bakemon soon began swarming around the others. "Attack!" All three Digimon were hit hard by the barrage of Hell's Hand.  
"The Digimon Kaiser understands both enemy and allied movements and gives effective orders!" Takeru noticed.  
"Where's Ross-san with all those military tactics when you need him?" I said.  
"Ken, I got a plan." Daisuke whispered in my ear. "Keep him distracted." I don't know what his plan is but I nodded anyways. He soon began running somewhere while the rest of our Digimon counterattacked. The others also moved out as well, leaving me all alone in the base of the canyon with a very hungry Deltamon nearby.  
"Knuckle Fire!" "Gold Rush!" The two Digimon who weren't surrounded launched their attacks at the Bakemon but they dodge them.  
"Tetermon! While the other Digimon are distracted, go for the Dark Tower!" I told him.  
"On it, Ken-chan!" He took off as fast as his wings could take him.  
"Attack Pattern Delta!" The Kaiser ordered. "And next…"

"Banzai!" Daisuke shouted as he actually snuck up on the Kaiser and tackled him, sending the both of them tumbling down the canyon wall. "We won't lose to a coward like you who takes prisoners!"  
"I'm completely different from all of you. I'm a genius! Of course, I should've expected this from someone who refuses to quit, even when he's losing by twenty points." The Kaiser smugly stated as they slid to the bottom. Wait, how the hell did he know that? Was he at the game!? The Kaiser kicked Daisuke off of him and he landed near me. "Deltamon! Triplex Force!" The three mouths of Deltamon began building a purplish ball of energy and they were aimed at the both of us. "Farewell, fools!"  
"Not so fast!" Fladramon shouted. "We… won't lose to anyone!" Fladramon flew up as the Triplex Force attack shot towards him. "Fire Rocket!" Fladramon cut right though the attack and flew directly into the Evil Ring, destroying it and removing the Kaiser's hold on the powerful Digimon! At the same time, we heard the tower explode and saw it coming down which meant the Bakemon were now free as well!

"Ugh… I should've expected you'd be able to see through my deception. You were always quite observant, Ken." The Kaiser said.  
"Okay, how the hell do you know so much about us!?" Daisuke demanded answers.  
"It was a miscalculation on my part. I should've just crushed you when I had the chance rather than trying to satisfy my pride after you stung it."  
"What are you saying?" I then soon noticed there was some blood on the Kaiser's right leg. It wasn't fresh, like it had been open during the slide, but rather from an earlier injury. In fact, there were three lines of blood on the pants… similar to… wait… He knew about the game… he knows about us, I mean, he could easily know about me thanks to all the media attention, but not Daisuke… the way he keeps using the word 'insects'… and finally… the voice… no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No! No! No! No! NO!  
"H-hey! That cut on your leg…" Daisuke noticed it as well. "No way… it can't be!"  
"It can and it is!" The Kaiser took off his glasses and confirmed my worst fears… starting right at us… was Osamu.

"Onii-san?" I whimpered as I fell to my knees in devastated mix of shock and fear.  
"What's the matter, Ken? You look like you've seen a ghost? Though I guess that makes sense with the Bakemon around." Osamu snickered a cold, unsettling laugh while giving the most sinister smile I had ever seen on a person, much less Osamu. "You have nothing to say?" I still was trying to process the information. Though now things made more sense. Osamu would disappear into his room for long periods of time and returned in a slightly better mood. I had thought nothing of it too much, assuming that he was working. I was wrong. He was happy because he was causing pain and suffering throughout his conquest of the Digital World.  
"Why…?"  
"Why? That's a funny question coming from you. Did you ever stop to wonder that maybe, just maybe, there was more to the world than we have in front of us?" I said nothing. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Osamu Ichijouji, the greatest boy genius of Japan… no, wait… the entire world has ever seen. Osamu Ichijouji, the one to lead humanity to a brighter tomorrow!" His voice was laced with sarcasm, though that humanity line had actually been said once or twice by the media. "Why should I have the weight of the world on my shoulders for a bunch of fools? Those insects don't deserve my genius; genius that they would only exploit and waste!"

"Mom and Dad were more proud of you than anyone because of your genius, including me. You stood up for me when I felt ignored… I… I… I looked up to you… everything that I am, what I've done, was to make you proud!" I shouted.  
"Optimistic as always, Ken. That's what I've always admired. To be honest, I actually did think about asking you to join me, but somehow I knew that your kind nature would only serve as a detriment to my plans. The only reason why you're still alive is perhaps I have some sympathy for you being my brother but that all ends. You may have won today, but from now on, I'll fight seriously." He jumped up and was picked up by Devidramon and flew away, his laugh filling across the valley.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

I couldn't believe what just happened. For the past month, we had been trying to figure out who the Digimon Kaiser was in reality, but this… why couldn't he have just been some nameless asshole that we didn't know? This was possibly the worst case scenario in terms of finding out who the Kaiser was. Ken has found out that his own brother is a complete monster.

I tried to help Ken get back on his feet, but he was in so much shock and crying heavily, he was almost completely immobile. We had to get Fladramon to carry him as we regrouped with the others.  
"What happened back there?" Takeru asked. "What's wrong with Ken-kun?"  
"It's the Digimon Kaiser. We… found out who he really is." I was slow to speak, how the hell do I tell them?  
"You did? Who is he?" Hikari questioned. All four of them were eager to find out.  
"It's… It's…"  
"It's who? Come on, spit it out!" Miyako shouted.  
"It's his brother…" I finally said it. Everyone's eyes widened and they all gasped at once before looking to Ken who was still crying.  
"Onii-san… Onii-san… WHY!?" Ken screamed to the heavens.

How exactly is he going to be able to fight his own brother…?

* * *

Talk about devastating.

I based the reveal off as a mix of Vader revealing that he's Luke's father in _**The Empire Strikes Back**_ (though Ken takes it worse because he's actually known Osamu all his life) and (what me and MadDog agreed immediantly) Bond's discovery that Janus is actually the still alive 006 Alec Trevelyan in _**Goldeneye**_.  
"Hence 'Janus', the two-face Roman god come to life."  
"It wasn't God who gave me this face. It was you, setting the timers for three minutes instead of six."  
"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"  
"No. You're supposed to die for me."

Oh, and if you all want the actual scene of the reveal, I had the amazing JubiaMajo on DeviantArt draw it, so go check it out. Osamu looks terrifying! Oh, also leave a message saying I brought you there. ;)

Anyways, that's all that, so see you all next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	12. The Kaiser Strikes! SkullGreymon!

Sorry for the delay, got distracted on Monday by going to see Peter Jackson's WW1 Documentary **_They Shall Not Grow Old_**.

Shoutout to **00dart** for his follow.

And shoutouts to **DigimonAT0318** , **agumonfan7** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96** for the reviews.

Anyways, let's get going with the recent revelation.

* * *

 **Chapter 11: The Kaiser Strikes! SkullGreymon!**

 _Digital World. May 12th, 2002. 1621 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser had returned to his base after the events in Death Valley where Monodramon had been waiting for him to return. He felt disappointed that he failed to hold the other children for as long as possible as the Kaiser ordered him to. The Kaiser walked up but was saying nothing.  
"Osamu-chan, are you alright?" The Kaiser responded by kicking him down. The Kaiser went back to his control room and continued saying nothing. The screens were showing not only other locations of the Digital World but of Tamachi as well. "The sun's setting…" Monodramon noticed.

"We're here today to find out who boy genius Ichijouji Osamu really is." A female reporter said as the Kaiser was watching an interview done by the local news about him.  
"I haven't really done anything special." Osamu admitted.  
"That's what you say, but you must be working really hard, aren't you?"  
"No, not really…"  
"Prodigies are really one percent talent and ninety-nine percent effort, aren't they?"  
"I guess."  
"By the way, Osamu-kun, since you're a school student, you probably like animals. Do you have any pets?"  
"No, my family lives in an apartment, and pets aren't allowed; which was disappointing to my brother who one Christmas really wanted a dog when we were younger."  
"Is that so? You live in a fairly normal place for a boy genius, don't you think?"  
"I guess."  
"In places like America, there's a skipping system that allows children your age to study in college. Would you like to skip ahead too?"  
"Well… Japan doesn't have such a system, so I think it's meaningless to discuss that."  
"But, supposing we did have such a system, you'd like to skip ahead, wouldn't you?"  
"I guess."

 _Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 10th, 2002. 1657 Hours._

"Thank you very much. Good luck with your studies." The interview said as they turned off the cameras.  
"Thanks. But I'm surprised you didn't interview Ken as well." Osamu replied.  
"It's a two-part piece; we'll interview him sometime next week."  
"Well, keep in mind that he can be very nervous before the camera comes on, so give him as much time as he needs."  
"Will keep that in mind. Thank you again for your time!" She placed a hand on his shoulder before the crew packed up their gear and began walking away.  
"Well done, Ichijouji-kun!" Osamu's teacher praised.  
"Oh, it was nothing at all." Osamu then wiped away his shoulder.  
"No, it's a great help. You're doing wonders for our school's reputation."  
"I'm glad I could be of some help."

"By the way, on a more personal note…" The teacher got right up to his ear. "How would you like to tutor my daughter?" The mask nearly came off on Osamu. If this was the Digital World, the man would've been torn to shreds by a pack of Gizamon under his control. Osamu had a dark look on his face while the teacher still had his eyes close. Osamu regained his composure and the man was none the wiser. "What do you think? I'd reward you appropriately…"  
"I'm afraid I'm too young and inexperienced to be a proper tutor for your daughter. Please, could you ask someone else?"  
"Really Yeah, I guess… I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh, it's this late already? I have to go home." He began to walk away.

"Oh, right! Could I ask you for one little thing?" The teacher asked.  
"What is it?"  
"An autograph." He held out his laptop. Osamu smirked before taking it and writing 'Yuriko-chan, do your best! – Ichijouji Osamu'  
"Will this do?"  
"Ah, thank you! So this is the autograph of boy genius Ichijouji Osamu… She'll love this!" As soon as the teacher was out of earshot, Osamu scoffed.

"Oh, welcome home! Dinner's ready!" Ruki told her son as he returned home. He walked into the living room where his father and brother were already eating. "I saw you on TV just now." She informed as she handed him his plate. "You were at that park over there, right? I should have been there."  
"That was a good one… the 'one percent talent and ninety-nine percent effort' thing…" Kaito praised.  
"I guess." Osamu muttered.  
"Kinda surprised I wasn't invited for that interview." Ken said.  
"It was on purpose. It's a two-part interview; they're going to interview you sometime next week."  
"Oh, thanks for the heads up there, Onii-san."  
"So, big game tomorrow, Ken-chan?" Ruki remembered.  
"Not really, it's just an exhibition game, but my friend Daisuke-kun is on the other team so that will be fun."

Osamu had enough of the conversation and put down the chop sticks.  
"What's wrong?" Ruki asked.  
"One second." Osamu walked outside and walked up to the roof of the apartment complex and looked out towards the city. Day by day, his choices of what do next were becoming clearer. He had grand plans and the stupidity of society wasn't going to get in his way from achieving them. He angrily grabbed the bars around the edge of the roof. "INSCETS!" He roared. Back in the present, the Kaiser got up out of his chair and began walking towards a holographic console where he was working on a new project.  
"Osamu-chan, now you're thinking about lots of complicated things… that I can't understand, right?" Monodramon said but was ignored.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 12th, 2002. 1631 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"You're kidding, right!?" Koushiro was taken aback with what we had just told him when we retuned back to the Real World. We had sent the message to the others to meet up with us at school while also telling them what had happened.  
"No, I'm being deathly serious about this! The Digimon Kaiser is Ken's older brother!" Daisuke shouted. We all quickly turned our attention back to Ken who was sitting in the corner with Wormmon. He had finally stopped crying but he hadn't even said a word since earlier.  
"Why would someone so talented and capable do all that?" I wondered.  
"I still can't believe it." Hikari said.  
"The Kaiser was under our noses this entire time." Takeru added.  
"Well, there's only one thing we need to do now." Koushiro spoke up.  
"Do what?"  
"Confront Ichijouji Osamu here in the Real World." We all nodded.  
"Fine, whatever, but I'm hungry, dagyaa!" Upamon complained.  
"Ah, right… Miyako-san sure is late…" We had Miyako go to her family's store to pick up some food for the Digimon; they needed it after today's fighting.

"Hey, hey, hey! Sorry to keep you guys waiting!" Miyako apologized as she opened the door and held up the bag of food.  
"Chocolate!" "Cheese fish cakes!" "Jelly drinks!" "Ice cream!" The Digimon excluding Poromon charged forward.  
"I want Iori-san's mother's kanpyomaki!" Poromon cried.  
"So, you don't want anything?" Miyako smirked.  
"I do! I do!" Poromon relented and flew over to join the others eating.  
"He sure is picky about his Japanese food… Oh, Wormmon! I brought you those chips you like!"  
"I'm okay… I'm not hungry." Wormmon said as he continued to look at Ken.  
"Okay, then… So we still waiting for the others?"  
"They'll be here soon." Takeru told her.

"I'm a fool…" We finally heard Ken speak again.  
"Huh?" Daisuke questioned.  
"I'm the biggest damn fool in the world… I should've realized sooner… I should've known…"  
"Ken-san, there's no way you could've known the Kaiser was your brother." I walked over to him.  
"Please… for crying out loud… he wasn't hiding his voice and that hairstyle is the same one he had when he was in elementary school! I should've recognized him in a heartbeat!"  
"Ken-chan… It's not your fault!" Wormmon tried to console him.  
"Where is he!?" We heard a voice shout from outside and turned to see Taichi and Ross had run into the lab. "What you all standing here?!" Ross questioned. "We've got to hurry!"  
"Hurry what?" Miyako wondered.  
"Before Osamu does something drastic!"  
"Something… drastic…" Ken's eyes widened and without a word he grabbed Wormmon and ran right out the lab.

"What was that about?" Koushiro was confused about what just happened.  
"I think he might be running back to his house." Taichi believed.  
"By himself? I don't know what his brother is capable of here in the Real World, so he's going to need our help!" Hikari said.  
"Yeah, bit of a problem with that is that he's on his bike and we'll never catch him. And also, we don't really know where in Tamachi he lives as he never told us yet." Daisuke pointed out.  
"I might be able to help with that. There's something in this magazine about the Ichijouji brothers." Miyako pulled out a magazine from her bag.  
"Gimme that!" Daisuke pulled it out of her hands.  
"You don't have to be so rough…"

Daisuke flipped through the pages until he finally came across a picture of both Ken and his brother.  
"There they are!" Daisuke announced.  
"Just looking at this… you could never tell that he does all those horrible things." I said.  
"His smile looks so gentle…" Hikari noticed.  
"It's a mask. He was just wearing that to hide the true heart of a psychotic dictator. That bastard used me yesterday!" growled Ross.  
"How?" I asked.  
"When I was talking with Osamu yesterday, we were just chatting about some random things and about how our lives had been… but he was also very keen on knowing about Ken's new friends…"  
"And he used that information against us all because…" Daisuke was about to accuse something but Taichi stepped in front of him.  
"Hey, don't accuse Ross of anything, Daisuke. He didn't know. On the way here, I was thinking you were going to accuse Ken of being in collaboration with his brother."  
"You kidding me? I saw him break down and cry so hard, I knew in an instant he was completely unaware of everything."

"Can I see that article please?" Daisuke handed Koushiro the magazine. "Give me a minute… good, there's a picture of his apartment complex… I should be able to narrow it down." He went to the computer.  
"Do you think he's a Chosen Child as well?" wondered Miyako.  
"Well, if he is, he's clearly fallen far." Takeru answered.  
"Alright, if I can cross reference some local maps with the picture, I should have the building, then we just go there and surely someone living there knows which apartment it is." Koushiro continued to type away on his computer. "Got it, should be around here."  
"Contact the others, tell them to meet us over there instead of here. Let's hurry!" Taichi ordered and we headed out.

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 12th, 2002. 1752 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"So?" Kaito asked Ruki about Osamu's mysterious silence.  
"He's been in there all day… actually, he hasn't come out since he came home yesterday with Ken." She told him.  
"That's right… he's been in there since the game…"  
"Actually, I just got a call while you were out earlier… but Osamu-chan hasn't been in class since Tuesday."  
"What!? What has he been doing while he's supposed to be in class?"  
"I don't know… I just have no idea… What should we do?"  
"Did his teachers say anything else other than him not showing up? Maybe something happened at school…"  
"Nothing of that sort… but they said we have to let Osamu-chan handle his things…"  
"What does that mean?"  
"They said he's so smart, they can't tell what he's thinking… It's really eerie because that's what Ken-chan's teachers say as well. In short, they've all given up."  
"That's completely irresponsible…"

"So, what should we do now?"  
"In any case, I'm breaking down the door."  
"But going that far…?"  
"What else can we do?" Kaito walked up to the door and pounded on it. "Osamu! Open this door right now!" He got no response. "I'm giving you three seconds… one… two… three!" He rammed the door and knocked it open. When he looked around, he noticed the entire room was empty. "Osamu?" He walked out on to the patio and saw that he wasn't there as well.  
"Kaito! Look at this!" Ruki screamed. He looked at the screen and his heart sank as he read the message that was left on it. "Why? Why!?"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Faster! Faster! I kept screaming those words to myself as I pedaled my bike back home. Ross's words about Osamu doing something drastic put the fear into me. What exactly is he capable of? Could he summon Digimon to the Real World to fight for him? Would he harm Mom and Dad? Too many questions and no answers… at least, none that will be answered until I get home. By the time I got home, I could see several police cars pulling up outside the building and Mom and Dad right out on the front steps of the building with Mom in tears. Did he kill himself or something… no, I'm positive he wouldn't do that, but I think I have a decent idea of what happened now. I dropped the bike right outside and hopped off before running inside.  
"Ken! Wait…!" Dad tried to stop me but I just ran by and up to the apartment. I ran inside the house with Wormmon still in my bag and ran into Osamu's room which was wide open. There was nothing inside but his computer was still on… and on it was a message.  
"'This world is no longer good enough. Goodbye. You're all insects.'" I read the message aloud.  
"Ken-chan? What does that mean?" Wormmon asked as he popped his head out of my bag.  
"He's run away… to the Digital World."  
"You mean…?"  
"Osamu has fully become the Kaiser."

 _Juriuchi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 13th, 2002. 1411 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Takeo hadn't been feeling too good for the past few days so he was taking a sick day from school. For most of the day he had been sleeping quietly while everyone in his house was gone, but recently he decided to check the Digital World on his computer. He had access to the map at his own home thanks to Koushiro. When he opened it, his eyes widened as he now saw the map had rapidly changed. A massive amount of white spaces had been turned into black spaces within the span of twenty-four hours.  
"Shit…" He muttered as he pulled out his D-Terminal and quickly typed the message out for the others.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 13th, 2002. 1651 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Koushiro met up with us after class to explain everything he found out, of course it was really late today as we had some after school work we were assigned. Yesterday, we arrived in Tamachi only for Ken to inform us that his brother had ran away from home. We all guessed that he actually fled to the Digital World. And now with this recent message from Takeo about what Osamu had been up to during the night… our job just got way harder, that's for sure.

"So apparently, Osamu Ichijouji has been missing since Saturday night, as that was the last time Ken and his family saw him." Koushiro explained to us new Chosen Children excluding Ken who didn't show up. Guess he's probably still trying to deal with all this.  
"They said they didn't know he was gone until yesterday." Hikari added the information the news report gave.  
"And it's Monday today… which has given him plenty of time to expand his territory as Takeo said." Iori said. Koushiro walked over to the computer and turned it on. We saw the Digital map and Takeo was indeed right.  
"The black area has expanded!" Takeru cried.  
"Then this confirms it. Osamu Ichijouji has indeed been in the Digital World all this time." Koushiro deduced.  
"Why?" Daisuke asked.  
"He's planning to stay there and increase the number of black areas."  
"Could it be he's not planning to come back to the Real World?" Takeru asked.  
"It could be…" answered Iori.  
"Eeh? He's going to stay in the Digital World forever? That's weird…" I said.  
"It makes sense. He can't stay here because he has no power in the Real World. He doesn't have an army to command or really any sort of way to stop us from getting our hands on him. That's why he's staying in the Digital World, because all his power is there. In any case, things will be tougher now, no doubt." Koushiro warned.

"If that's the case, then we're going too!" Daisuke announced.  
"But, at this time?" Koushiro slightly worried.  
"We'll work something out!"  
"We have to go!" agreed Hikari.  
"Yeah." nodded Takeru.  
"We'll be right back!" I said. Koushiro relented.  
"Take a look and come back right away. Do not get bogged down in a fight!" He ordered.  
"Got it!" Daisuke said. We all held up our Digivices to the screen.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" I cried.

When we arrived to the Digital World, the location was anything but hospitable as we were in a rocky field with pits of fire and lava all around us.  
"It's hot…" I observed as I wiped the sweat from my brow.  
"What is this place?"  
"An area that's not too far away from an active volcano from the looks of it." Hawkmon looked around.  
"Come on; let's not stay here any longer than necessary." Iori advised. We nodded and began walking through the area.  
"Osamu Ichijouji! Where are you!?" Daisuke loudly demanded. We didn't get an actual answer from him but we got what probably could count as one when five human like Digimon engulfed in fire burst right out of a lava pit with Evil Rings around their necks.  
"Meramon!" Takeru shouted. "They burn everything with their fierce flames and fiery tempers! Whatever you do, don't get hit by their Burning Fist!"  
"Leave it to me! Let's go! Digimental Up!" Daisuke shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!"

A Meramon threw a Burning Fist but Fladramon was unimpressed by the fiery attack coming towards him.  
"Knuckle Fire!" His attack tore through the fireball that was coming his way and struck the attacking Meramon right in the chest. However, the hit did nothing in terms of damage.  
"Knuckle Fire doesn't work?" Daisuke questioned.  
"Fire attacks may not work!" Hikari feared.  
"Miyako-san!" Hawkmon stepped forward, waiting for my word.  
"Okay, let's go! Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!" Holsmon flew high up in the air and prepared his attack. "Tempest Wing!" He created a massive vortex of wind but it appeared all he was doing was building their flames which were going to make our job even worse.  
"It's no good! It's just making the flames larger!" Holsmon stopped on my order.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At the same time nearby the Chosen Children, Greymon was out on a late patrol in one of his many protected area when the sky filled with four Airdramon and the Kaiser's personal Devidramon.  
"What?" Greymon questioned as the Devidramon flew closer to him. "You want some?" He threatened.  
"I've got an experiment I'd like to try, and I'd appreciate your help." The Kaiser said.  
"An experiment involving you? No thanks."  
"Unfortunately, you don't have a choice." The Kaiser then chuckled and snapped his fingers as an Evil Ring fell down upon Greymon.  
"Osamu-chan? Why are you laughing?" Monodramon questioned as poor Greymon roared in pain as the Ring was taking its hold on him.  
"I was unable to control Andromon… But I'll surely be able to control a Perfect-Level if I make it evolve from Adult-Level. Ken and his little insect friends are doomed." The Kaiser sinisterly smiled.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Hikari-san, Takeru-san! I'm going too!" Iori stepped forward with Armadimon. "Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" He jumped forward in front of the five attacking Meramon. "Big Crack!" All of his drills crashed into the ground and he created a large chasm that all the Meramon fell in.  
"You did it!" Unfortunately, the Meramon just climbed right back out. Damn it, was it too much to ask for those Rings to be melted or something?  
"Watch out!" Daisuke warned.  
"It never ends!" Miyako feared.  
"Takeru!" Patamon got my attention.  
"Got it! Digimental Up!"  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"

Both flying Digimon gaining some altitude and then came back around for their run.  
"Udjat Gaze!" Two of the Meramon were suddenly stopped as Pegasmon floated over. The underside of his wings grew dark as there was like a portal into space that opened in his wings.  
"Shooting Star!" Stars struck the two paralyzed Meramon.  
"Tailmon!" Hikari said.  
"Hikari!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" As Nefertimon took to the skies, the battle was soon won. "Curse of the Queen!" Nefertimon's attack destroyed the Evil Rings and the remaining Meramon were freed from the Kaiser's control.  
"Now, the Dark Tower!" Hikari directed. We really should be going back like Koushiro requested but the tower is wide open for attack.

We didn't get a chance to move on that as we heard a very dark roar that could be heard for miles away.  
"What was that!?" Miyako questioned.  
"I know that roar…" I muttered. If that's what I think it was… we turned towards the direction and sure enough, four Airdramon were coming our way while carrying a ghastly looking Digimon that I thought I would never see again.  
"Takeru-kun! Is that…?" Hikari clearly recognized the beast from the stories we told her.  
"Yeah, it is. It's SkullGreymon!"  
"SkullGreymon?" Iori asked.  
"A devastating Digimon of immense power! Its main attack is Ground Zero! That should tell you everything! Where the hell did Osamu dig up that monstrosity?" The four Airdramon couldn't carry his weight and the decayed dinosaur grabbed the cords carrying it and tore them apart, sending him to the ground and causing a massive rumble. We could see a Devidramon nearby so it was clear that Osamu was here personally witnessing this. "We have to run…"  
"Huh?" Daisuke was confused.  
"We don't have a chance against him!"

My warning was clearly missed upon the new Digimon as all three of them charged forward… and easily swatted aside so hard that they devolved back into their Child-Levels.  
"Fladramon!" "Holsmon!" "Digmon!" Their partners cried out for them. SkullGreymon soon turned its attention towards us and started walking our way.  
"Everyone, run!" Nefertimon shouted.  
"But we have to stay together!" Hikari reminded.  
"We'll take the rest of the Digimon with us. Wait for us somewhere safe!" Pegasmon informed.  
"Ground Zero!" SkullGreymon announced his catastrophic attack and the large organic missile on his back launched… and flew straight towards the Dark Tower. There was a massive, blinding explosion that would make you think a nuclear bomb had gone off nearby. The sheer force of the blast waves blew us all backwards onto the ground.  
"Wh-what's wrong… with that thing!?" Daisuke questioned.

We heard a whistle over the air that must have been done by Osamu and suddenly, five DarkTyranomon walked into the area. They stomped right past us as they were clearly intent with fighting SkullGreymon.  
"More enemies?" Miyako worried.  
"Looks more like they're dealing with SkullGreymon than worry about us." Iori believed. It looked to be right as all five of the dinosaurs launched their attacks at SkullGreymon. They aimed for his feet and burned the ground underneath it.  
"What are they doing?" Daisuke asked.  
"I don't know…" I told him. The attacks didn't work as they were all swatted away as well. Hell, one just got grabbed before getting thrown against a rocky hill near us.  
"I-its strong…" Daisuke muttered.  
"But this is crazy!" Miyako cried.

Our fears were slightly relieved when SkullGreymon glowed which meant it was devolving. Unfortunately, it turns out… that SkullGreymon was a very familiar Agumon.  
"That's…!" Hikari gasped. An Airdramon flew down and picked him up. "Agumon!" Hikari screamed as she ran forward. I chased after her.  
"Hikari-chan! Stop!" I grabbed her.  
"Let me go, Takeru-kun! He's taking Onii-chan's Agumon away!"  
"You go, you'll get killed!"  
"Please! Let go!"  
"No! Everyone, help me!" The others assisted me in grabbing her and she just had tears in her eyes as we all watched Agumon be taken away.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Jesus, how did it all turn so fast on us? The message was spread pretty quickly about what happened a few hours ago. Taichi's barricaded himself in our room; I dare not go in there tonight. It was all going fine a few days ago, but within twenty-four hours, it was just one piece of bad news after the other. First, we discovered the identity of the Digimon Kaiser; however, it was someone we'd never expected. Ken's own damn brother was the Kaiser and under our very noses, hell, Ken was sleeping less than a few steps away from a psychopath who I'm surprised didn't murder him in his sleep. Then in order to escape us, he's taken permanent residence in the Digital World and now that he isn't conflicted with living a duel life, the Kaiser can now strike fear and expand his territory around the clock.

Then today came the day I was worried about. I knew Osamu's version of the Kaiserschlacht would be coming, but not like this. And now this latest development… Here we thought that our Digimon could protect areas from being recaptured. I mean, they evolved so much they can do it without us now so we thought it would fine. We were wrong. Our foolishness has been paid for in Agumon's freedom and all the Digimon that were in the areas he was guarding, which had now been conquered once more. However, we're not going to quit. We're gonna unleashed the whirlwind and show Osamu that he will never win no matter what he does.

Because I shudder to think what the alterative will be…

* * *

And that was Chapter 11.

I don't really have anything else to say about this one so I'll see you all next time.

 ** _"Press the button, Frank."_**


	13. A Familiar Enemy! MetalGreymon!

Hello again, got this one out eventually.

Shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96** for the reviews. And sorry, DigiAT, I decided that Ken telling his parents would change a later chapter, but don't worry, the parents knowing about the Digimon is going to play a part within a few chapters.

Anyways... let's keep going with the story.

* * *

 **Chapter 12: A Familiar Enemy! MetalGreymon!**

 _Odaiba Middle School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 14th, 2002. 1440 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Talk about a dreary day. A heavy rain had descended on the city today which I have to assume was also reflecting Taichi's feelings at the moment. He's probably very antsy to get out of his geometry class and head down to the elementary school so we can look for and rescue Agumon. Hopefully, Tentomon, Guilmon or one of their contacts could maybe track down where Agumon had been taken or where Osamu was currently hiding. I shudder to think what that sick bastard is doing to poor Agumon at this moment and Taichi's feeling worse, as he mentioned during lunch. I did try to tell him there was nothing he could've done about it and that it's just something we're going to have to deal with. I certainly hope we can resolve this crisis as quickly as possible before things get much worse… because according to Hikari yesterday, I think I got an idea what Osamu's plan is with Agumon.

When the school bell rang, Taichi, Koushiro and myself met up and sprinted through the rain until we got to the elementary school and the computer lab. The only person that was waiting in there for us was Iori however; the others were missing until almost a quarter after three.  
"Sorry for making you wait!" Daisuke apologized as he, Hikari and Takeru ran in.  
"You're late!" Taichi shouted.  
"Sorry, Onii-chan…" Hikari also apologized.  
"Taichi-senpai, you have it wrong." Daisuke tried to defend. "It's not Hikari-chan's fault, Okada and the guys started playing hockey with the brooms, so…" If he thinks that's going to help ease the tension, he's dead wrong.  
"Yeah, and the teacher yelled at us too." Takeru added.  
"Who's this Okada?" questioned Taichi.  
"Ah, he's part of the same cleaning crew…" Taichi's face melted into a look of some serious anger upon Daisuke's explanation.  
"It's okay, Daisuke-kun. It was my fault too for not stopping them…" Hikari said.  
"But…"  
"Really, it's okay. Thanks."  
"Really?"

"By the way, where's Miyako-san?" Takeru asked.  
"Still not here…" Poromon informed.  
"Does she still have class?" wondered Koushiro.  
"Class ended a long time ago." Daisuke told him. "She must be wasting time somewhere…"  
"Then go look for her!" Taichi ordered.  
"R-Right!"  
"I'm going too!" Iori followed along.  
"Listen, Taichi, I know you're upset, but try not to take it out on the others, okay?" I suggested.  
"Miyako-san…" We looked back to the door and saw Miyako slowly walk in.  
"Sorry, I'm late." She said.  
"Alright, so we're all here now." Koushiro assumed.  
"Hold your horses, where's Ken?" I reminded.  
"I don't know if he's going to be coming in with both this weather and recent events." Hikari observed.  
"Well, then I'm counting on you guys." Taichi told the group.

"Come on, Miyako, the usual cheer!" Daisuke cried. Miyako just kept that downtrodden look on her face. "What's wrong?"  
"Are you sick?" worried Poromon.  
"It's not that…" She informed.  
"If you don't tell us, we won't know…" Chibimon said.  
"You're not up to it, right? Then, it's better if you don't come with us." stated Taichi.  
"Onii-chan…" Hikari walked up to him.  
"Don't get me wrong… I'm not angry, I just don't want to put you guys in danger. Worst case, I was thinking of going just with Ross and Hikari." The both of us nodded.  
"It's fine, Miyako-san. We're not forcing you to come." Takeru assured her.  
"That's right, we go because we want to go." Iori added.

"If anyone should stay behind, it should me." We heard Ken's voice and saw him walking in dressed in a soaking rain poncho.  
"Surprised you made it." I said.  
"Yeah, sorry I wasn't here yesterday… Koushiro kept me updated; Osa- the Kaiser captured Agumon, right?" We nodded.  
"Look, how's about you and Ken-kun stay here while we go?" Koushiro suggested to Miyako.  
"But…" She tried to quietly argue.  
"It's fine. It's better if you don't go when you're feeling like that." Tailmon told them.  
"That's right!" Miyako was surprised by Poromon's words. "In this state, you would only be a burden!"  
"If you're not feeling up for it either, Ken-chan… then I don't mind staying behind." Wormmon informed Ken.  
"Thanks, Wormmon."  
"Then the usual cheer is up to you, Hikari-chan!" Takeru shouted. She walked over to the computer and held up her D-3.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser was feeling very frustrated with recent events. The inability for him to control a Perfect-Level Digimon was burning away at him and he was trying to figure out how correct the problem. If he could have under his control a powerful Perfect-Level Digimon, then the interfering Chosen Children wouldn't stand a chance. However, his ideas on solving this problem were falling apart. Andromon failed because the Evil Ring eventually failed on him so controlling a permanent Perfect was out of the question. Then came Agumon who he thought he could control if he Dark Evolve him into a Perfect but that just created SkullGreymon, an uncontrollable monstrosity. So he was now back to square one.  
"Why…?" The Kaiser muttered to himself. "Why can't it control the Perfect-Level?" He was looking on his screen at an Evil Ring. "Does the Evil Ring have a limit? In that case, where is the problem?" He turned his screen back onto Greymon.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

We arrived back to the same place we were yesterday in the Digital World where SkullGreymon rampaged where we were going to meet up with Tentomon.  
"Koushiro-han! I've been waiting for you guys!" Tentomon cried as he perched on a scorched tree.  
"Tentomon, nice to see you're still doing okay." Koushiro breathed a sigh of relief.  
"Yep, though I wish I could say the same for Agumon.  
"It was here… here, SkullGreymon…" I told Taichi.  
"Yeah…"  
"He's as destructive as ever." Tentomon informed.  
"It makes me mad… that he would capture Agumon knowing he's Taichi-san's Digimon partner…" Daisuke growled.  
"Man, he sure toyed with me…" Taichi muttered. "I never thought I'd get fooled by a kid my own age."  
"He fooled all of us, Taichi, especially his own brother. Don't think you're the only one hurting here." Ross told him.  
"Unforgivable!" Iori screamed as he angrily swung a stick above Armadimon's head like a Shinai.  
"I-Iori, what's wrong, dagyaa?"  
"It's unforgivable… and it's shameful that he's also a human!" He put the stick aside like he was sheathing a sword.  
"Iori-kun…" Takeru brought him back to reality.  
"I'm sorry, I got carried away…"

"Hey, where did they take Agumon?" Patamon wondered.  
"That's the problem…" Takeru reluctantly admitted.  
"Don't worry, we'll find him soon. Right, Daisuke?" V-mon asked.  
"Yup, yup!"  
"No false hopes!" Taichi shouted.  
"O-okay…"  
"Onii-chan…" I muttered.  
"It's the first time I've seen Taichi like this…" Tailmon said.  
"It can't be helped." Takeru replied.  
"Anyway, there's nothing to do here, so… Let's try gathering some information."

"Actually, Guilmon's not too far away and he think he might have a lead." Tentomon informed.  
"Good ol' Guilmon, he ain't let me down yet." Ross smiled.  
"Okay, here's the plan. Ross-san and I will go with Tentomon to Guilmon's location and try to see what he found out; in the meantime, you guys go try to see if you can find out amongst the Kaiser's servants." Koushiro gave out the plan.  
"How do we do that?" Daisuke asked.  
"Knock down some towers, there are probably some Digimon that are under his control that might know where he is." Ross said as the three of them began running towards the east.  
"Onii-chan, are we going?" I questioned.  
"Yeah." He answered and we walked a different direction.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Greymon, Dark-Evolve!" The Kaiser ordered. Greymon was being held in a massive dome that was designed to contain powerful Digimon and prevent them from escaping. Just like before Greymon evolved not into MetalGreymon like the Kaiser wanted but rather SkullGreymon once more. Thankfully, the Kaiser was smart enough to test these experiments in a more controlled environment just to keep the rampaging dinosaur corpse from blowing up another Dark Tower. SkullGreymon was smashing and slamming against the walls of the dome in a desperate bid to escape and cause untold destruction. The dome held up and he fell over in exhaustion. "Where is the problem?" The Kaiser tried to wrap his brain around the issue he was trying to solve.

When ramming the dome wouldn't work, SkullGreymon decided to blast his way out and fired one of his Ground Zero missiles. The dome held but part of the structure was exposed. Another missile widened the whole which SkullGreymon tried to leap for but was electrocuted to keep him from escaping.  
"So, it won't work…" The Kaiser concluded that the Evil Ring would never control a Perfect-Level Digimon as the Evil Ring shattered and SkullGreymon devolved back into Greymon. "What was that?"  
"Did you find out something, Osamu-chan?" Monodramon asked.  
"Maybe… Greymon, Dark-Evolve!"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Take that tower down, Fladramon!" I ordered as we ran towards a gravel hill that had a Dark Tower on it.  
"Right!" The ground suddenly exploded in front of us.  
"Wh-what's that?" A large tree trunk Digimon popped out of the ground.  
"I'm the guardian of this area, Woodmon! If you come any closer…"  
"Fire Rocket!" Woodmon didn't even get to finish as Fladramon rammed into him and he crashed into the tower.  
"But I wasn't finished…"  
"Knuckle Fire!" Fladramon destroyed the tower and it tipped where Woodmon caught it as his Evil Ring was destroyed.  
"What was I doing? Wait, why am I holding this?"

"Hey! Do you know where the Digimon Kaiser went?" Taichi asked.  
"Um… um…"  
"Do you know or not?"  
"That way, I think!" He motioned towards the west.  
"Thanks! Guys, let's go!" We ran off while we left Woodmon to his own devices.  
"What about me!? You over there, help me!" He got buried underground but we thought he'd be fine, after all, he burst from the ground earlier.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"We can confirm that the Kaiser went there and that he had Agumon with him. We're going there as we speak. Can you inform Taichi-san and the rest?" Koushiro told me through the screen.  
"Of course." I told him.  
"We'll contact you later to see how things have gone then."  
"Did they find Agumon?" Miyako asked as she walked back into the room after washing her glasses.  
"Guilmon was sure about the information so…"  
"Where is it? I'll tell the others."  
"A place called Locomotown. Sounds like some sort of massive rail hub for trains." She nodded and typed away on her D-Terminal while I looked at the screen. "I don't mean to pry, but I'm wondering why exactly you weren't up for going today?"  
"You're not prying, but… it's just with what has happened to Agumon, things are getting serious, and I can't keep thinking of all this as some sort of picnic. I know that, but…"

"Scared of the danger and how everything's changed? I wish I had your problem… at least your sibling isn't a crazed maniac."  
"How have your parents been handling Osamu? Did you tell them?"  
"I couldn't bring myself to say. I mean, what am I supposed to say? That their eldest son is a psychotic dictator of another world? They're depressed enough; I don't want to push them over the edge."  
"I still can't believe it. He seemed nice."  
"He is! At least… that's what I thought. When we were little, he actually taught me how to blow bubbles. See, back then, Osamu was the only genius in the family; I was just normal old Ken. He would cut the straws and mix the soap so we could blow the bubbles. I remember, that I was the one who could be able to blow the biggest bubbles and that was the proudest I ever felt in my life… I was able to do something better than Osamu who was perfect at everything."  
"If that's the case, then I can't see how exactly someone like that could turn so vile…Ken-kun, did Osamu go with you to the Digital World?"  
"Probably, but I can't remember, there's still that fog in my mind and I don't know why."

"It all sounds so confusing… and hard to comprehend. I mean, I'm not as close with my siblings as say like Takeru-kun or Hikari-chan are with their siblings but… I couldn't possible imagine what you're going through."  
"Well, I do appreciate that you're trying to help me… I guess we're both having issues. You not exactly ready for true fighting and I'm trying to fight my own brother."  
"Then how's about we help each other?"  
"Excuse me?"  
"You try and help me with my problem and I'll try to help you with yours, what do you say?"  
"I get the feeling yours is easier to solve then mine… but I truly thank you for the help, Miyako-san." I held my hand out for her.  
"Hey, what are friends for?" She shook it.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The same result… SkullGreymon was causing damage once more but now the Kaiser was feeling more confident on solving the issue that had been plaguing his mind. Another Ground Zero attack brought down part of the dome paneling on SkullGreymon and he soon devolved all the way back to Agumon.  
"I see… The Evil Ring can easily control the Adult-Level, but it can't process all the data needed to control the Perfect-Level… The issue would be power… what I truly need is to expand its function. So do I need to add more rings on a Digimon? No… adding yes, but rather by changing the ring's shape…" He laughed. "The word 'impossible' doesn't exist for me." It appeared that the Kaiser had reached a breakthrough in his experiments…all the while unaware that Monodramon was sauntering off.

Monodramon was taking a large risk with what he was planning to do. He ran the risk of taking the full force of the Kaiser's wrath with what he was going to do next. He walked into the dome where Agumon laid unconscious from all the stressful evolving that he was being forced through for hours. Monodramon went up to him and then deactivated the Evil Ring around his neck. The Kaiser was so preoccupied with his own work and conquest that he didn't realize that Monodramon was watching everything and was actually one of the only beings in the Digital World who knew how to deactivate the rings. He may have been fanatically loyal to the Kaiser, but he didn't want to see poor Agumon suffer anymore. He began to walk out but threw the ring away on his way out before Agumon began to regain consciousness.  
"I'm free… why?" Agumon questioned. He felt serious pain in his arm like it was broken and he grabbed it as he saw the exit being left wide open. "I have to get out of here…"

"No good… processing power has improved, but it's still not enough." The Kaiser growled. He knew he was on the right path but that final hurtle was still in his way. "Wait…" He suddenly reached a breakthrough. "This is it! I should have done that from the beginning… Why didn't I think of this earlier? Numbers bear strength." On the screen, the rings merged together and formed a spiral. "This way, processing and transmitting power increase, so a Dark Tower's power isn't needed…" The evil grin that spread across his face would be quite worrisome to the Digital World. "Let's test this ring." He flipped the screen back to the containment dome, only to find that Agumon was missing. "He's not there…? Why?"

The Kaiser sat back down in his chair, trying to figure out what had happened.  
"How did he escape?"  
"What's wrong, Osamu-chan?" Monodramon asked.  
"Agumon has escaped. But how did he get the Evil Ring off…?"  
"Hey, Osamu-chan!"  
"What!?"  
"Forget about him! Use me for your experiments on evolution! I'll evolve, evolve and fight for you, Osamu-chan! So use me…"  
"It was you who let him escape!?" The Kaiser roared.  
"W-well, I'm your partner! I should be able to evolve! So if you're going to do tests, do your tests on me!"  
"What kind of splendid Digimon would you evolve into? And you're my partner? Heh. No chance. How could the Digimon Kaiser have a partner like you?"  
"Osamu-chan!" The Kaiser kicked him when he shouted that.

"From now on, calling me 'Osamu-chan' is unacceptable. My name is Digimon Kaiser."  
"I'm sorry, Osamu… I mean, Digimon Kaiser-sama… So please… I…"  
"Shut up!" He lifted his whip up and Monodramon prepared for the strike but a buzzing noise was made on the screen indicating that Agumon had been located and the Chosen Children were getting close to him. "His friends are coming to his rescue… I won't let that happen." He began to walk away before he turned his attention back to Monodramon. "You got lucky."  
"Osamu-chan!" The whip cracked right in front of him.

 _Locomotown, Digital World. May 14th, 2002. 1601 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

A quick ride on Pegasmon and Nefertimon got us to the outskirts of Locomotown where Agumon was apparently being held captive if Guilmon's information was correct. As we stood over the hill of the town, we could see dozens of railroad tracks leading to it.  
"It's Locomotown, no doubt!" Daisuke believed.  
"It's like a big railway set…" Iori observed.  
"Wait for me, Agumon… I'll rescue you for sure!" I said under my breath as we ran towards the town.

After a few minutes, we were deep in the center of the town but other than the Dark Tower, there was little here in terms of some place to hold Agumon.  
"Alright… which way should we go?" I wondered.  
"Should we split up and search?" Hikari suggested.  
"I think that's best…" Tailmon agreed. We heard a train whistle in the distance and it sounded like it was getting closer.  
"A train's coming…" V-mon listened.  
"From there?" Daisuke looked towards the tunnel under the hill. We were right as we saw the locomotive steam ahead to us. And conducting the train himself was the only being I wanted to see.  
"That's Agumon!" I cried. "Agumon!" I shouted over the sound of the train.  
"Taichi?" He turned his head. Tailmon switched the tracks the train was on so we could have Agumon stop his train.

"Agumon! Are you alright, Agumon?" I ran to him.  
"Taichi? Is it really you, Taichi!?" He jumped into my arms.  
"Of course it's me! I'm so glad you're okay!" I hugged him but he groaned in pain. "Sorry, are you hurt?"  
"Don't worry, I'll be better soon."  
"Onii-chan, we should get away… before the Digimon Kaiser comes again." advised Hikari.  
"W-wait a second!" Daisuke shoved her out of the way... which actually surprised me. Doesn't he have a crush on her or something? "We came this far… and we're just going to run away?"  
"Yeah, that's right. Our goal was to rescue Agumon. We'll come back for the tower another day." Daisuke looked slightly disappointed in me, like I had become a coward or something. "Don't worry, Daisuke. After what Osamu has done to Agumon, I'm not going to let this go. We'll get him for this soon enough. But right now, we need to get Agumon to safety."  
"If you say so, Taichi-senpai…"

"Agumon, does it hurt?" I asked him as I carried him on my back as we tried to head back to the nearest TV.  
"I'm fine. Thanks, Taichi." We stopped when we heard a sinister laugh behind us. We turned around and saw that Osamu was standing at the top of a tunnel we just walked out of.  
"Osamu Ichijouji!" Takeru shouted.  
"Will you ever call me Digimon Kaiser?"  
"I'll call you whatever I wanna call you! Osamu, Osamu, Osamu! Osamu Ichijouji!" Daisuke was kicking the nest with his words.  
"You really want to make me angry, huh?"  
"That's my line!" I countered. "Doing what you've done to Agumon… You better be prepared!"  
"A middle schooler getting all angry at a genius… how pathetic." He chuckled.  
"What!?"

"I may be younger than you, but I look down on you!" declared Iori. "You're a disgrace to all humans!" He threw his stick at him but the Kaiser swung his whip and snapped it in half.  
"I won't be affected by what some insects say." Three Airdramon flew beside the Kaiser before he cracked his whip once more. We soon found five DarkTyranomon surrounding us.  
"Daisuke, evolution!" V-mon cried.  
"Got it! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!"  
"If I don't fight, you won't be satisfied, dagyaa!" Armadimon chimed to Iori.  
"Right! Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" A DarkTyranomon fired a blast at Fladramon but he simply shrugged it off.  
"Fire Rocket!" He knocked down one DarkTyranomon before doing one of those no-look punches that destroyed another Evil Ring.  
"Big Crack!" Digmon's attack dealt with the three remaining DarkTyranomon.

"What?!" The Kaiser was taken aback.  
"Knuckle Fire!" The attack nearly blew the Kaiser but he jumped and landed on an Airdramon.  
"Me too!" Both Tailmon and Patamon were itching to get into the fight.  
"Go for it!" Takeru and Hikari responded. "Digimental Up!"  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" "Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!" Takeru and Hikari climbed aboard their Digimon and took to the skies to deal with the remaining attackers.  
"Curse of the Queen!" Nefertimon drew away two of the Airdramon away which left the one with the Kaiser wide open.  
"Needle Rain!" Pegasmon's attack was aimed straight for the Kaiser and hit him… but the shots bounced off his cape like armor. Bit surprised about that attack, beat up Osamu yes, but I don't think we should kill him… yet. "Silver Blaze!" The attack hit the Airdramon and sent Osamu flying off.

"It's my turn!" Agumon ran forward.  
"Wait!" I shouted, trying to catch him. I knew he could be able to fight as well, but he was hurt and I didn't want him to suffer any permanent damage.  
"It's too bad… you're just a little late." Osamu said on the mound of dirt he was standing on before he pulled a strange item out. "The Evil Spiral is complete." Evil Spiral? It glowed red and he threw it which latched itself onto Agumon's arm!  
"Wh-what's this?" Agumon then screamed in pain as he collapsed to the ground.  
"It's the improved Evil Ring, the Evil Spiral."  
"What?" I shouted as I got closer to Agumon as he got back up. However, his eyes were glowing red meaning that he was under Osamu's complete control.  
"Watch out!" Daisuke pushed me out of the way before one of Agumon's Baby Flames could nail me in the chest.  
"No good! He's already controlled!" Iori cried.

"Now, Agumon… Dark-Evolve!" Osamu held up his Dark Digivice and Agumon began to glow. When the purple light died down, standing before us was MetalGreymon, but he had a darker color scheme, kinda like when Leomon had all those Black Gears in him. "Just as I planned. You could evolve the way I wanted now." This was pretty foolish of me but I ran forward to him.  
"Agumon!" I called out.  
"Taichi-senpai, it's dangerous!" Daisuke warned.  
"It's me! Don't you recognize me?"  
"Talking is useless." insulted the Kaiser. "He's not your Digimon partner anymore, but my slave. Go, MetalGreymon! Show us the power of the Perfect-Level!"  
"Watch out!" Daisuke grabbed me again before I could be skewered by MetalGreymon's claw.  
"Stop MetalGreymon!" Takeru ordered the other Digimon.  
"Nefertimon, let's go!" Pegasmon said.  
"Sanctuary Bind!" The two of them tied up MetalGreymon and threw him to the ground.

"Don't hurt him!" I yelled as Daisuke was trying to hold me back.  
"I don't we can hurt him. What should we do?" Fladramon asked.  
"What? I have no idea!" Daisuke worried.  
"Digmon! Can you attack just the Evil Spiral?" theorized Iori.  
"I'm not sure… it's a small target, and he's moving a lot…" Digmon feared.  
"I'll try!" Fladramon got ahead of him.  
"No, stop!" I yelled once more.  
"Watch out!" Daisuke pulled me back once more.  
"Stop! Don't attack Agumon!"  
"But, like this…" Hikari spoke up.  
"We have to do something quickly!" Takeru cried.  
"This is all we can do! Shouldn't we at least try?" Iori insisted.

"Wait! Please, wait a second!" I cried again.  
"We can't wait!" Iori shouted.  
"Wait! Taichi-senpai says to wait, so we wait!" Daisuke agreed with me. At the same time, MetalGreymon escaped from his bindings and sent both Pegasmon and Nefertimon to the ground. Then his chest compartment opened up and those of us that knew MetalGreymon knew what was coming.  
"Everyone, run!" Takeru yelled.  
"Giga Destroyer!" The missiles flew out and exploded right in front of Digmon and Fladramon, creating a massive wall of smoke. All the while Osamu was laughing to his heart's content.  
"As expected from the Perfect-Level! This will be too easy." MetalGreymon began flying in the air. "MetalGreymon! With your power, I'll take over the Digital World in no time!"  
"Agumon!" I called out once more as they turned and flew away.  
"Now go, MetalGreymon! To the next area!" The Kaiser laughed once more.

"We can't follow them any further!" Iori said the words I was dreading to hear. We've basically abandoned Agumon to the Kaiser's control now…  
"Still, MetalGreymon is incredible…" Daisuke admitted.  
"What do I do… what do I do to get Agumon back…" I muttered. Lord, if you're out there, some help would be nice.  
"Guys!" We suddenly heard Miyako's voice. We looked up to the tracks and saw Miyako, Ken and Yamato riding in a few rail carts, one of which had a sail on it.  
"Miyako-san!" "Ken" "Onii-chan!" Iori, Daisuke and Takeru called out. They ran over to them while Hikari stuck by me.  
"Sorry about earlier." Miyako apologized.  
"No, we believed you would come!" Iori told her.  
"Yeah, we both realized staying behind wasn't going to solve anything…" Ken admitted.  
"These two staying behind was a big help for me." Yamato said. "Takeo's back at the computer lab before any of you ask about who's watching the computer. Anyway… what's the situation?"

The others were filled in with today's events very quickly. All the while, I was still trying to think of what I could do to try and get Agumon back.  
"So that's how it is…" Yamato nodded.  
"What do I do… what do I do…?" I kept whispering.  
"Taichi." I turned to look at Yamato… and he decked me in the face.  
"Why'd you punch him!? Agumon was captured, and Taichi-senpai is in shock…! And yet… why!?" Daisuke augured.  
"Wait, Daisuke-kun!" Hikari stopped him.

"Taichi." Yamato held out his hand for me to help me up off the ground.  
"Yamato… Thanks, Yamato." I still can't believe it takes our group a punch to the face to get us back on track. Damn, he hits harder than he used to.  
"No problem, you're welcome."  
"You opened my eyes. I can't hesitate anymore. I don't even know if I can keep up normally… If I hesitate, there's no way I can keep up. If we don't use all our strength, we won't get Agumon back."  
"Yeah. That's what Agumon would want too. He'd rather be destroyed than be used by the Digimon Kaiser."  
"Yeah." I nodded. I hope it doesn't come to that… but… if that's our last option…

"Guys, listen! Next time we fight MetalGreymon, please don't hold back!"  
"Is that okay…?" Hikari asked.  
"Yeah."  
"It's like Taichi says. Listen, everyone! If you care about Agumon, don't hesitate for a second!" Tailmon barked orders like she was a drill sergeant.  
"Understood!" The other Digimon agreed.  
"What about you, Ken-kun?" Miyako wondered. "Can you be willing to fight the Kaiser, even if he's who he is?"  
"I can't give a definitive answer. But if the others can fight Agumon… then I'll sure try to fight Osam- the Digimon Kaiser." Ken nodded.  
"That's all we're asking from you, Ken." I told him.

"Alright, let's go!" Takeru pumped his fist into the air. "Ah, that's Miyako-san's line, right?"  
"Chosen Children, let's roll!" She pumped her fist into the air with a determined smile on her face. We all climbed aboard the rail cars and head down the tracks in the same direction of MetalGreymon.  
"What's up with those two?" Daisuke whispered to V-mon in reference to Yamato and I.  
"No idea."  
"I don't get it…"

Hang on, Agumon; we're coming to save you…

* * *

Boy, Osamu's really stepping up the game. It bodes ill for the Chosen Children.

I haven't really go more to say with this one so see you all soon. Christmas Eve or Christmas Day for sure, you're getting a chapter as a present! However, the present will be delivered by Jack Skellington dressed as Sandy Claws... so heads up. (Sorry, was listening to the Haunted Mansion Holiday Soundtrack.)

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	14. Blue Lightning! Lighdramon!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Sorry this one took so long, but I had to go to some relatives south of town and then watch some Christmas classics, _**Scrooged**_ , _ **Die Hard**_ and _ **Home Alone**_.  
'I get it. You're here to show me my past, and I'm supposed to get all dully-eyed and mush. Well, forget it, pal, you got the wrong guy!'  
'That's exactly what Attila the Hun said. But when he saw his mother... Niagara Falls!'

Shoutout to a lot of people, **Lord-sassy012** , **Shiovaun** , **Vietnam123** , and **Whiteling** , who left some reviews on Sweat and Tears before catching up with us, for faves and follows.

And for the reviews, thanks newcomer **Whitling** , **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96**.  
To **Vietnam123** , yes the Dark World is in this story.  
And **God of the Challenge** , first, you got that quote from Boyle! Also, if reading 'This Story' for more than four hours, consult a doctor immediately.

Well, let's finish this festive day with a bang.

* * *

 **Chapter 13: Blue Lightning! Lighdramon!**

 _Digital World. May 14th, 2002. 1627 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

With MetalGreymon under his complete command, the Kaiser was already making quick gains with the sheer power he had at his disposal. Multiple sectors were falling quickly under his control and now the Chosen Children had nothing to counter him with. While Armor was a good work around to his Dark Digivice jamming any sort of evolution attempts; at the end of the day, Armor was only a stop-gap measure to fighting as an Adult-Level. It would not be enough to fight a fully evolved Perfect-Level.  
"The Evil Spiral can even control the Perfect-Level." The Kaiser said to himself. "Nothing can get in my way now." MetalGreymon roared. "You want to fight more, huh? Good boy."

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

We kept moving along down the track trying as best as we could to follow MetalGreymon and the Kaiser when we saw some familiar objects closing in on us.  
"Ross-chan! Koushiro-san!" Hikari called out and wave to the two of them were closing in on Waibanmon and ForceBeemon.  
"There you guys are! We've been looking for you." Koushiro explained. He and ForceBeemon landed in the middle of the three carts where Ken, Takeru and Osamu were, while Ross and Waibanmon, who devolved back to Guilmon, landed in the front cart with me and Taichi.  
"We caught a glimpse of what happened. Guessing the Kaiser figured out how to control a Perfect-Level Digimon, right?" Ross inquired.  
"And poor Agumon was the victim?" Guilmon added. We nodded.  
"Hey!" Iori alerted. "Mail from Takeo-san!"  
"What does he say?" asked Koushiro.  
"The Digimon Kaiser is moving south."  
"Which means?" I questioned.  
"That we're on the right track." ForceBeemon said.

"Alright, this time we'll get Agumon back for sure!" Taichi declared.  
"Yeah, we can't let the Kaiser have his way!" I chimed. "Oh, right…" I quickly remembered something. "Koushiro, ForceBeemon… I have a favor to ask."  
"What is it, Yamato-san?" Koushiro wondered.  
"Can you find Gabumon for me? I feel we're going to need an extra paw."  
"Sure, we can find him. Leave it to us. ForceBeemon! Let's go!" ForceBeemon wrapped around Koushiro's back and took off with him as they flew away.

"Hey, wait a second." Daisuke stood up. "You mean we're going to fight MetalGreymon?"  
"Yeah." Taichi nodded.  
"If we hesitate, we'll go down. We have to do what we have to do. We can't help him by not fighting him. It's either that or we just roll over and let the Kaiser dominate the rest of the Digital World, now do you want that?" I reminded Daisuke what was at stake.  
"But I… I wonder if I'll be able to attack Taichi-san's Digimon…" Daisuke was very hesitant to what needed to be done.  
"But we have no choice." Takeru told him.  
"What?"  
"I don't want to do it, but there's no choice. If we don't fight, we can't save Agumon. We have no choice!"  
"Destroying Taichi-san's Agumon?" Daisuke got up into his face. "What's that about having no choice?"  
"Not destroying, just removing that Evil Spiral!"  
"But we couldn't, could we? We can't remove it unless we destroy the Digimon!"  
"But that's what Taichi-san has decided! We all have to do our best!"  
"Easy for you to say!" He charged into him and the two started to fight.

"Hey, guys! Stop it, you two!" Ken tried to get in between them to try and stop them.  
"Don't stop them!" Taichi ordered.  
"Why?" Miyako asked.  
"Shouldn't we stop them?" Iori questioned.  
"It's best to let them get it out of their system." Ross told them. "Chosen Children and infighting is nothing new."  
"We used to fight a lot too…" Taichi added, referring to all the fights me and him got into. "If we hadn't, we wouldn't be friends now. So let them fight."  
"Let them fight? What's that mean?" Miyako was confused.  
"I don't know, but there must be a meaning to it." Iori believed.  
"Exactly. You'll understand." I said.  
"Anyway, now we have to chase after the Kaiser." Taichi got us back on track.

 _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

As ForceBeemon and I flew through the air in search of Gabumon, it was clear the Kaiser was making good on his advantage as we were encountering many Dark Towers along the way.  
"The Kaiser got this far…" ForceBeemon muttered to himself. We heard some sounds and we took cover behind a rock formation… well, ForceBeemon hid behind a rock formation but we were still flying in the air. We looked to the ground and saw some Pagumon who were hopping away with Evil Rings around one of their ears.  
"We need to find Gabumon quick…" I whispered to ForceBeemon.  
"Agreed."

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

"Huh… This is…" Iori seemed to have discovered something.  
"What is it?" I asked him.  
"A Digimental's signal."  
"Eh? A Digimental's?" Daisuke questioned.  
"There's still one more?" Hikari was in disbelief as well as the rest of us. Ross pulled on the brake handle and stopped the cart and we pulled up right next to a cliff side that had a familiar symbol carved into it.  
"That Crest…" I saw that it was the Crest of Friendship.  
"Should we check it out?" Taichi wondered.  
"Let's do it." Iori determined.

We walked up to it and Iori's Digivice beeped even faster.  
"So it is coming from here!" Looks like he was right.  
"That's…" Daisuke walked up to a small hole in front of us. "Found it." We walked over to it… and found that it looked very familiar.  
"Talk about seeing double." I said. It was the exact same Digimental that I picked up last month when we fought that RedVegimon. "That's the Digimental of Friendship."  
"Wait, friendship?" Daisuke must not have paid as much attention last time.  
"It's like proof of all the fights Yamato and I had." Taichi said.  
"We fought about stupid things." I added.  
"Fighting is proof of friendship…? What's that about?" Daisuke sounded confused.

"I can't believe there's two of that Digimental." Iori said. "I wonder whose it is."  
"Well, I don't think there are any more Chosen Children… but then again, remember when we first pulled out our Digimentals? They split in half then copied themselves." Miyako remembered.  
"Is that what happened with you guys?" Ken questioned.  
"Yeah… Daisuke-kun, Miyako-san, and Iori-kun pulled out theirs and got their Digimon partners when they pulled out the Digimental. However, they needed Taichi-san, Sora-san, and Koushiro-san to help them pulled it out. When they did, they split in half before they reformed as they were before." Takeru explained.  
"Well, this is different then, because I already pulled this one out." I reminded.  
"Yamato, even though you have done it before, why don't you try with this one." Taichi suggested.  
"Alright…" I got down in the whole and started to pull. However, unlike last time, this one wouldn't budge. "Nothing… maybe it's because I already have one just like it."

"Iori, you try." Taichi suggested next.  
"Y-yes." He climbed into the hole and tried himself but the same result happened with him. That thing was not moving.  
"Taichi, you?" I motioned him. Taichi nodded and tried but he failed. "Everyone else try too." The others tried as well. Takeru gave up in exhaustion, Hikari was out of breath, Ross was stomping his foot like a rabbit trying to pull it, Ken failed as well, and Miyako accidently fell backwards and hit her head on the lip of the hole; thank goodness she had that helmet.  
"The Digimental of Friendship, huh…?" muttered Daisuke.  
"Daisuke, your turn." Ross patted him on the back.  
"I don't think it's mine."  
"Why?" I asked. Is he trying to get out of this?  
"Because… this is the Digimental of Friendship, right…?" Why does he look so nervous? "And I have no idea what friendship is…" What? I looked over and saw the others were confused as well. Except for Ken, the look on his face said something like 'I know how you feel.' I think. I can't really tell.

"That's why it's alright." Taichi assured him.  
"I don't get what you guys were saying about Agumon at all… I don't understand when you say we should fight…" He tried to explain. Both Taichi and I grabbed him.  
"Stop making excuses, just do it! Didn't you hear what your seniors said?" I yelled as we threw him into the hole… though he almost landed on the lightning bolt part of the Digimental face first.  
"Careful! I nearly impaled myself on this thing!"  
"We're in a hurry, so just do it!" Taichi demanded.  
"Okay, okay, okay, I get it…" He quickly motioned himself to prepare to lift it before he began to tug on it... but just like the rest of us… it wouldn't budge. "I knew it wouldn't work!"

Suddenly, the air began ringing with a painful buzz that caused all of us to cover our ears.  
"What's that noise!?" Daisuke shouted.  
"My ears hurt!" Miyako complained. We turned and saw a Flymon heading straight for us. "Something's flying this way!"  
"Be careful! That's a Flymon!" I warned. It used its Deadly Sting attack and we jumped out of the way to avoid being hit by all the stingers that were launched at us. Unfortunately, poor Patamon got clipped by one and he fell to the ground in pain.  
"Patamon!" Takeru cried.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon was itching to fight the controlled Digimon.  
"Alright! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!"

"Fire Rocket!" Fladramon tried to stop Flymon but the bug was too fast for him to reach.  
"Hawkmon!" Miyako did some weird motions like she was a Super Sentai or something.  
"Yes!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!" He took off to join the fight. "Tempest Wing!" Again, Flymon was able to avoid the attack.  
"That's it! Time to fight stinger with stinger! Wormmon!" Ken got fired up.  
"Ready when you are, Ken-chan!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!" Tetermon swarmed as fast as he was able and got a few strikes on Flymon but the other bug responded by stopping his wings and producing that sharp ringing noise causing us to grab our ears again.

When the ringing stopped, Takeru gasped in fear.  
"Patamon? Patamon is gone!" He exclaimed.  
"What?" I responded.  
"Up there!" Ross pointed. We looked up to see that Flymon had swooped by us and abducted Patamon. It didn't take a genius to understand what was going on. Osamu was going to try to pick us off one by one not by destroying us but by turning our own Digimon partners against us!  
"Patamon!" Takeru cried.  
"No… not Patamon too!" feared Hikari.  
"Patamon!" Takeru ran forward after the Flymon with our Digimon following suit.  
"Guilmon, take to the skies!" Ross ordered.  
"Roger!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Guilmon, Armor-Evolve! Honorable Fire, WAIBANMON!" Ross hopped on his partner and both he and Ken took to the air.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We pursued that Flymon as far as we could until practically out of nowhere, our path was blocked by the all intimidating MetalGreymon!  
"BREAK OFF! BREAK OFF!" Ross shouted as both he and Ken flew out of the way before they crashed into MetalGreymon.  
"MetalGreymon!" Taichi exclaimed.  
"Everyone! Be careful!" Yamato warned. All of us took a good look at the Kaiser who was riding on MetalGreymon's shoulder.  
"Clearly you need another lesson to prove that I have won as I was expecting you all to run home." The Kaiser taunted.  
"I could say the same for you, Osamu." Ken spoke up. "For crying out loud, please, put an end to all this madness and just come home! You know how devastated Mom and Dad are because of all this!?" The Kaiser stared him down. He then slowly chuckled before he started laughing so hard you'd think he had heard the funniest joke ever.  
"Oh, sweet and naïve, Ken. Don't you see? I am home!" He suddenly roared before he snapped his finger and the Flymon that abducted Patamon flew next to him.

"Patamon! Patamon!" Takeru called out for his partner as the rest of us caught up with him. The Kaiser pulled out another one of those Evil Spirals and chuckled once more.  
"An Evil Spiral!" Hikari observed.  
"What are you going to do with that!?" Taichi demanded… though I'm pretty sure we all knew the answer to that.  
"I was able to make a second Evil Spiral… I'll test it out on this Digimon." The Kaiser turned to Patamon. "Honored? You will be part of this ingenious experiment…"  
"What?! Don't play with me!" Takeru yelled in anger.  
"You better watch your mouth."  
"Damn…" Fladramon growled. "Fire…!"  
"Stop, Fladramon!" I ordered him to stop before he did something drastic. "What if you hurt Patamon?" I reminded him.  
"Sorry, Daisuke… but…"

"Patamon is too close to the Kaiser!" Holsmon sounded frustrated.  
"We can't make a move…" I was worried beyond belief about the predicament.  
"What are you waiting for!?" Takeru ran up to me.  
"What?"  
"We have to get Patamon back!"  
"I already know that!"  
"Then don't just stand there watching!"  
"Who's just watching!?" I grabbed him again only for Miyako to be the one to break up our fight before it could begin.  
"Stop it, you two! This isn't the time to fight, alright!?"

The Kaiser laughed once more.  
"You rats, what are you doing? Fighting each other? So that's all your friendship amounts to, huh…? You certainly know how to pick your so called friends, Ken-chan!"  
"Please, Onii-san! I'm begging you! Stop this now!" Ken insisted.  
"Keep saying that… I'm sure it will work eventually." responded Ross sarcastically. "Let's face it, Ken-kun… your brother lost his marbles a long time ago." The Kaiser gritted his teeth due to the fact he had just been insulted but he regained his smug grin.  
"I'll never let you have your way with Patamon!" professed Takeru.  
"Same with Agumon!" Taichi added.  
"Heh… If you say so… if you can get them back, do so." He turned his attention back to Patamon.  
"You're going…" Patamon gulped in fear. "…to put that on me?"  
"Exactly… I'll show your foolish friends this wonderful experiment…" The Kaiser slowly moved the Spiral towards Patamon while he struggled to escape Flymon's grasp.  
"Patamon!" Takeru charged forward but Taichi was right behind him.  
"Takeru!" He tackled him to get them to avoid MetalGreymon's claw that launched out towards them.

However, while it seemed like Patamon would suffer the same fate as Agumon; a bright blast shot forward and destroyed the Evil Spiral in the Kaiser's hands. He grasped his hand in pain before Patamon vanished as a blue and white blur soared by and also destroyed the ring around Flymon. It turned out the shot was from ForceBeemon who hovered nearby.  
"Sorry, that's two of your devices I owe you." The bug taunted. The white and blue blur was actually Garurumon who landed in front of us.  
"Garurumon!" Yamato shouted.  
"I heard everything from Koushiro." Garurumon explained. He opened his mouth to reveal that he Patamon safely secured in there. Patamon jumped out into Takeru's arms.  
"Garurumon, thanks!" Patamon thanked.  
"Are you alright, Patamon?" Takeru asked.  
"Hurts a little, but I'm fine. Sorry I made you worry."  
"Takeru put himself in danger to save Patamon…" I muttered.  
"Daisuke, would you do the same for me?" Fladramon asked.  
"Y-yeah, maybe…"  
"Maybe!? Maybe!? What about 'definitely'!?" Probably should've just said yes.

"How dare you interfere with my plans… I see you're really trying to make me angry." The Kaiser growled. "This is it for your sickening friendship talk! MetalGreymon!"  
"Damn it… we'll definitely bring you back!" Taichi called out to his former partner.  
"We'll take MetalGreymon's Evil Spiral off!" Yamato assured him as Garurumon devolved back into Gabumon. "Let's go! Digimental Up!"  
"Gabumon, Armor-Evolve! Thunderous Friendship, RAIMON!" Yamato climbed onto his back and they ran forward. MetalGreymon tried to stomp them but they backed up quick. "Don't you know who I am?" Raimon was trying to get through to MetalGreymon similar to how Hikari got through to Andromon. Though, I'm sure that's why the Evil Spiral was created; to keep that from happening once more.  
"No use trying to get through to him, Raimon! We have to break that Evil Spiral if we want free him!" Yamato told him.  
"But… we'd have to attack MetalGreymon…"  
"We have to! Don't hold back. If we don't go full force, we'll go down! Right, Taichi?" Taichi nodded.  
"Please!"

"We'll back you up!" Iori informed. "Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"  
"Digimental Up!" Hikari shouted.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"  
"Gold Rush!" "Rosetta Stone!" The two of them launched their attacks that took MetalGreymon off balanced.  
"Ken-kun! Koushiro-kun! Holsmon! Follow me in!" Ross shouted and the four of them flew towards MetalGreymon who launched one of his Giga Destroyers at them, which they all dodged. "Watch that cross-fire, boys!"  
"Tempest Wing!" "Steel Swipe!" "Beam Drill!" "Precision Sting!" The four of them got even closer to striking MetalGreymon but the big dinosaur was surprisingly evasive for something his size.  
"Man! He moves quick!" Koushiro growled.  
"It's alright! Don't hold back you guys!" Taichi assured them. Raimon actually used the distraction to jump onto MetalGreymon's arm and bit down on the Evil Spiral but was quickly thrown off of him. "Electric Javelin!" MetalGreymon was more willing to let itself get hit rather than the Spiral so he took the hit to his chest rather than his arm.  
"MetalGreymon, sorry! But we have no choice!" apologized Yamato.

"Daisuke, please!" Taichi was practically begging me to help fight.  
"Daisuke, won't we fight? Daisuke!" Fladramon was also insistent on trying to help.  
"But that's… Taichi-san's Agumon…" I can't bring myself to attack him, not like this…  
"If you're like that… I…" Fladramon devolved back into V-mon.  
"I… I…" Ugh! Why does it all have to be so confusing!? I don't want to destroy him! Everyone is saying we only need to take out the Evil Spiral but what if that's not the case? What if we have to kill him in order to stop him? I came back to reality as that metal arm nearly impaled me forcing both V-mon and I to dive to the ground to avoid it.  
"Daisuke, what are you doing?" V-mon asked. "Are we just going to run away from MetalGreymon!?"  
"No… at this rate, we'll all get killed!"  
"That's not going to happen!" Taichi shouted. "Believe in Raimon and Agumon!"  
"Believe…?"  
"Agumon, get ready! We'll get that Evil Spiral for sure!" Yamato called out.  
"Yamato, Raimon! I'm counting on you!" Taichi said as Raimon jumped on the Evil Spiral once more.

 _"Takeru and Taichi-san have far stronger bonds with the Digimon than I thought… It must have been really tough for them to say that we have no choice but to attack Agumon…"_ I thought to myself as Raimon was thrown off the arm once more. Patamon had to swoop in and lift V-mon out of the way before he got stomped on.  
"Patamon…" He groaned.  
"V-mon, don't give up!"  
"Patamon!" I called for him, mostly to try to thank him for the save.  
"Daisuke-kun!" Takeru walked up to me. "Don't worry about us. Go for MetalGreymon!"  
"Takeru… _Even though I couldn't understand how Takeru felt… Even though I couldn't save Patamon…_ Dammit… I'm so pathetic!" I screamed.

I don't really understand what just happened but for some reason my D-3 began to glow.  
"What the…?" I questioned as I looked at it.  
"Daisuke-san's D-3 is reacting!" Iori observed.  
"The Digimental…" Hikari exclaimed. The Digimental that we had trouble pulling out floated all the way over here and stopped right in front of me.  
"The Digimental from before… Daisuke! It was your Digimental!" V-mon cheered.  
"My… Digimental…" I grabbed it.  
"Daisuke-san already had the Digimental of Courage. If Daisuke-san now has two Digimentals… what could it mean?" Iori said.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon was ready for the word.  
"Alright! Let's do it! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Storm of Friendship, LIGHDRAMON!"

Lighdramon was a sight to behold. He was a large blue and black quadruped reptile with the armor coving most of his body and the lightning bolt from the Digimental was his horn.  
"So a single Digimon can Armor-Evolve in two different ways!" Iori was surprised as well as the rest of the group.  
"Get him, MetalGreymon!" Looks like the Kaiser did not like this new development. Another launch of the metal claw but Lighdramon jumped over it.  
"Blue Thunder!" The three protrudes on Lighdramon's back lit up and formed a large ball of electricity above him that launched out and struck the Evil Spiral as fast as lightning.  
"That's a hit!" I cried. However, that Spiral is tougher than it looks.  
"It didn't work… it didn't come off!" Yamato growled. The Kaiser only chuckled.  
"It's pointless."  
"Isn't there a way to take it off? Is he going to stay like this forever!?" worried Taichi.  
"No! We'll definitely take it off!" declared Yamato. "Trust me!"  
"Agumon, remember! About Taichi, about me!" Raimon shouted.

"Daisuke!" Yamato got my attention. "Believe in Agumon! Believe in yourself!"  
"Yamato-san…"  
"Daisuke-kun! Fight together with Lighdramon!" Takeru told me.  
"Together?"  
"Daisuke, get on my back!"  
"Right, if I'm with Lighdramon, I should be able to do it. No, we're the only ones who can!"  
"Daisuke, let's go!" Yamato said.  
"Yeah!" We rode up next to him and Raimon. "Lighdramon, let's give it all we've got!"  
"Leave it to me!" He said.  
"Daisuke-kun, Yamato-san! We'll give you cover!" Ken announced as Tetermon, ForceBeemon and Waibanmon flew close to MetalGreymon.  
"Hey! Herr Kaiser! Over here!" Ross taunted which drew MetalGreymon's attention away.  
"He's distracted! Go you two!" Koushiro ordered us to begin our charge.

"I'm counting on you!" Taichi told us.  
"Electric Javelin!" MetalGreymon dodge the attack but it had left him wide open for our attack.  
"Lightning Blade!" The bolt on Lighdramon's head lit up and launched forward towards the Evil Spiral and engulfed it in electricity. We all held our collective breath to see if a direct hit like that would work. The Evil Spiral suddenly shattered!  
"We did it!" "It came off!" "Good job, everyone!" "Way to go!" "Great work, Daisuke-kun!"  
"What!?" The Kaiser shouted as MetalGreymon began to devolve back into Agumon. However, he was not one to stick around as that personal Devidramon of his swooped in and picked him up before we could get our hands on him.  
"I'm getting really sick of that Devidramon." I muttered under my breath.

Agumon, meanwhile, was standing with a confused look on his face before Taichi practically tackled him in a hug.  
"Th-that hurts!" He cried.  
"Agumon, it's great to have you back…" Taichi looked like he was about to cry.  
"I came back to you, Taichi!"  
"Yeah! Believe me; I won't let this happen again, okay!? I was really worried about you!"  
"Taichi!" Now Agumon looked like he was about to cry.  
"Daisuke-kun, that was amazing! You brought Agumon back!" praised Hikari.  
"I knew you could do it!" Miyako added.  
"We did it…?" I could still not really believe it. It feels like some sort of dream.  
"Looks like it…" Lighdramon told me.  
"Daisuke-kun?" Iori tried to get my attention.  
"I wonder what's wrong with him…" Takeru said.  
"It looks like he's not sure of what he accomplished." Ken walked over. "Either that, or he's so pumped full of adrenaline he can't think straight."  
"Daisuke, good job! You did great!" Yamato nearly tackled me off of Lighdramon's back and started to rustle up my hair.  
"Eh? Yeah…"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser was absolutely livid with the recent developments. Sure, he had conquered a wide swath of the Digital World in the past few days, more than he ever would have had he remained in the Real World. But without his prized controlled Perfect, the Chosen Children would push back hard, and he was sure they weren't going to allow him to capture another one of their partners which crippled the perfect strategy he had come up with.  
"Strange… according to my calculations, the Evil Spiral shouldn't be destroyed by such an attack."  
"Hey, Os… I mean, Digimon Kaiser-sama… they're all really good friends. Maybe that allowed them to become stronger…" Monodramon believed.  
"Are you saying this was caused by their friendship!?" The Kaiser stared daggers at him. The dragon Digimon was frozen in fear. "Ridiculous… What a ridiculous idea…"

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Well, at least this crisis was solved." Takeo answered after we told him what had happened.  
"Indeed, we got Agumon back somehow, but we have to be careful." Koushiro said. "I think we need to get that secret project of ours up sooner now, don't you think, Ross-san?"  
"Agreed. And another thing… it's clear that the Kaiser wants to capture and use our Digimon against us so in order to prevent this from happening once more, we're going to have to change our entire strategy."  
"What do you mean?" Ken asked.  
"It means that from now on, our Digimon are going to have to stay in the Real World so we can make sure they're not captured." Koushiro informed. "We'll spend the rest of the week telling our Digimon to stay low before we collect them."  
"Shoot… having Guilmon coming to live with me? Nice early birthday present this Saturday. I'll take him to see **_Attack of the Clones_** … but before that we're going to binge the rest of saga." I smiled.

Daisuke in the meantime was still looking at his D-Terminal and the two Digimentals he now had.  
"Daisuke, it's all thanks to you. Thank you." Taichi gave his praise.  
"Eh? Uh, me?"  
"That's right, you!" Yamato quickly gave him a noogie. "I'm glad you got the Crest of Friendship!"  
"I don't really get it… was I that cool?" He asked the New Breed.  
"Well, at the time, I didn't feel just your strength, but Taichi, Yamato and everyone's too. I'm sure that was it!" Chibimon informed.  
"What are you talking about? It was because of me and just me, right?" Daisuke shook him.  
"As I thought, the kid's still got a long way to go…" Yamato chuckled.  
"Eeh? Why?"  
"You keep saying 'me, me' like a little kid."  
"He's right!" Hikari told him.  
"No way…"Daisuke nearly fell over causing all of us to laugh.

Still, even though we manage to take victory from the jaws of defeat today, this war has just hit the fever pitch…

* * *

What's this special project they're talking about? Well, you'll find out next chapter which will be an original one with Taichi. I kinda wanted all of the Old Breed to get some highlight episode like Yamato did with this one or Sora has with the Wild West in the chapter after this next one.

Take care for now, folks.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	15. Through the Flames! FlareLizamon!

Sorry! Sorry! This one took way longer than it should have, but it's here now.

Shoutout to **petru95** for joining us just before this chapter got edited. Thanks man.

And of course, shoutout to reviews **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , **God of the Challenge** and **Whiteling**.

I almost forgot to mention bad news, but Taichi's voice actress in the first two series, Toshiko Fuji, tragically passed away at the age of 68. R.I.P.

Anyways, let's get on with the chapter. Oh, by the way, considering the title... you may listen to either Dragonforce or John Williams... actually, just listen to the John Williams one as the chapter is not 'Through Fire and Flames'.

* * *

 **Chapter 14: Through the Flames! FlareLizamon!**

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 19th, 2002. 0735 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Fourteen years. That's how long I've been on this Earth since yesterday. It's almost kinda hard to believe with the life I've had. There was that point in 1998 when I was suffering from my depression and attempted to end my life and then that whole summer of 1999 when for a while it looked like I would end up a corpse rotting in the Digital World. Of course, that's still on the table right now if we not careful, because I get the feeling that Osamu has put the kill order on us all after everything we've done to interfere with his conquest.

Speaking of the Digital World, the past couple of days we spent our time taking out several more Dark Towers while at the same time we were collecting our Digimon to prevent them from being captured and used by the Kaiser like he did with Agumon before. It felt great to have Guilmon staying home once more, and now we could finally do the stuff that I really wanted to do with him before we had to say goodbye at the end of our last adventures. Yesterday, we went to the movies to see **_Attack of the Clones_** but not before we watched the rest of the Star Wars saga. Like I thought, he was absolutely blown away by the films, especially the space battle over the forest moon of Endor which I consider the greatest thing man has ever put to film.

Of course, it wasn't all fun and games; we still had work to do if we were going to stop the Kaiser from taking over the rest of the Digital World, which is what led us today. Takeo and I were sneaking in a cart with some boxes on it to the elementary school while no one was around. This was all part of our secret project that we had all but ready now, though there was still one thing missing that was actually critical to everything.

"Reminded me how you talked me into doing this again?" Takeo whispered as he complained.  
"Jeez, if I knew you get a little panicky on a simple 'breaking and entering'…"  
"Plus attempted robbery."  
"We're just switching out, nobody is going to tell the difference when we take the computer from the lab."  
"You sure?"  
"Yes! Koushiro and I got the exact same computer that the lab has and he was very thorough with what programs are on it and where there are. Trust me, it will all be fine. Plus we're doing this for the greater good, and don't you compare me to some violent dictator that said the same thing, I'm not in the mood for a joke right now… save it until we're well away from the school."  
"Fine… okay, we're here." We pulled the cart up to the computer lab door. We quietly slid it open and rolled in the cart before lifting the boxes that had the new computer.

"Okay, Koushiro said that everything is ready, all we need to do is plug in the proper cords and turn it on and then it'll look like the same computer… minus it having a Digital Gate attached to it."  
"Hey, how much is this all costing again?" Takeo asked as we started unplugging the computer we were going to be taking.  
"We got a good deal on some aspects of the project but it'll be fine. You know my dad has a lot in savings."  
"How was that again?"  
"My great-great grandfather invested in part of the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas, which makes the Shiner Bock beer and through an agreement, my family gets a small parentage of the profits every year. I think after taxes and everything… my dad gets about eighty thousand a year. Why do you think he still stays in the service? They ain't paying an NFL salary there, I can tell you that."  
"Wait, I though Koushiro-kun's folks were chipping in?"  
"They are, but Dad is paying more. Okay, now we got that unplugged, move it to a different table then help me put the new one in."  
"Alright." After a couple of minutes, we got everything taken care of. All that was left was turning on the new computer and seeing if we did everything right. After another few minutes of booting up, the computer was on and it looked like nothing was off. "You're right, Ross. No one is going to tell the difference."  
"Come on, let's go." We rolled the Digital Gate computer out and headed to our final destination.

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 19th, 2002. 1024 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

"Come on, it's just over here." Ross motioned us. The New Breed excluding Ken and I were near the middle school to where Ross said that secret project he and Koushiro were working on was.  
"You know how shady this sounds, right Ross-san?" Daisuke questioned.  
"I assure you, I'm well aware, but trust me, you'll like this." He led us down the street before we turned down an alley and in front of a locked garage door.  
"This is it? Looks like an abandoned warehouse?" Miyako observed.  
"Just wait until I open the door okay?" Ross exasperated as he began to unlock the door.  
"Hey, by the way… Ross, where's Agumon?" I asked him. When I woke up late this morning, I found that Agumon was gone.  
"Just give me a second! Come on! Why won't you unlock!?" The door beside the garage opened up revealing Koushiro.  
"Need a hand?"  
"Well, thanks for ruining the presentation." Ross growled as we all walked in.

When we got inside, we could see it was a fairly sized warehouse that was somewhat empty but there was a large table that had a bunch of computers on it as well as one familiar one. As soon as I walked in, I was tackled by Agumon who jumped me.  
"Taichi!"  
"Hey, easy Augmon!" I laughed. "You're acting like I haven't seen you in years. Hey, what is this place?"  
"Everybody… welcome to Headquarters." Ross presented.  
"Headquarters…?" Iori said.  
"This that project you said you and Koushiro were working on?" Takeru asked.  
"Indeed. We thought that maybe we needed to find a place a bit more… subtle… to meet up when going to the Digital World. Takeo-san was a perfect example of why going to the school was slowly becoming a bad idea." Koushiro explained.  
"Right… don't want the teachers asking questions of why former graduates are showing up almost every day." Hikari admitted.

"Well, this certainly is cool." I nodded.  
"It's got everything we need, large size for all of us and our Digimon to stay in, enough power for all the things we will need, and of course, we got the computer from the lab so we can now come here if we want to go to the Digital World." informed Koushiro.  
"Wait? You took the computer from the lab?" Miyako walked over to it.  
"Yeah, but don't worry, we replace it with one that looks exactly like it so the school won't know the difference. Can't look for something you aren't missing." Ross said.  
"It's necessary." I told them. "That's the only computer that can take us to the Digital World, so I guess we didn't have much of a choice on that matter."  
"Unless, someone wants to explain to Fujiyama-sensei and hope he understands enough to let us keep doing this." Daisuke pointed out.  
"Nah." We all collectively said.

"I have to admit, this is actually a pretty good idea." Takeru walked around.  
"We'll bring more stuff in, gives us time to relax, take a bit of a breather, and allow the Digimon that stick around here something to do while we're gone." Ross said.  
"Wait, what do you mean by stick around?" questioned Miyako.  
"Well, we do want someone to guard this place during the night, just in case. What better way to keep someone out than a Digimon?" Koushiro told her.  
"Besides, if someone breaks in, it's not like they're going to go to the cops about it. 'Yes, I was breaking into this warehouse and some small reptile shooting fire chased me out.'" Ross added. That actually sounds about right.  
"Well, what are we doing standing around here? Let's make this place worth it by going to the Digital World and showing the Digimon Kaiser who's boss!" Daisuke cheered. Everyone split up and headed back to their homes to get their Digimon.

After about thirty minutes, we were all ready with our Digimon, except for Ross and Koushiro who stuck around.  
"Hey, where's Ken?" Daisuke asked.  
"I just got a message from him. He says he can't make it today." Miyako informed.  
"What!? Why?"  
"He has to put up flyers… for his brother."  
"Oh, you've got to be… ugh, why doesn't he just tell them what's going on?"  
"Daisuke-san, they're already feeling terrible about him vanishing, I doubt they want to truly know the truth about him. I think it'd make it worse and his parents probably wouldn't understand." Iori explained.  
"That's exactly what he said to me the other day." Miyako was surprised. "Besides, our parents don't know either." She reminded Daisuke.  
"That's different; our folks don't care about what we do after school." Daisuke said. None of us said anything after that. "Whatever, can we go now?"  
"Just a second, we need to make sure this gate works here." Koushiro typed away. "Okay, moment of truth. Who wants to do the honors?" Hikari walked up to the screen and held up her D-3. After a few seconds, the gate activated revealing that it was open.  
"Alright!" "Yeah!" There we go!" We cheered.  
"Okay, then! Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" Miyako cried and we all were sent to the Digital World.

When we arrived to the Digital World, we found ourselves in quite the environment. A large rocky area with some really high temperatures.  
"Ugh, another hot field?" Miyako complained.  
"Maybe it has something to do with that volcano over there?" Iori pointed to a volcano not too far away from us.  
"That's pretty hot looking. My feathers are already getting messed up from the heat." Hawkmon informed.  
"Same goes with my coat of fur. Let's hurry and get done with this place." Tailmon chimed in.  
"Is there a Dark Tower out here? I can't see it." Hikari looked around.  
"Well, according to the map there is one in the area, but you're right, Hikari-chan, I see no signs of Dark Tower." Takeru said. I looked over to Agumon.  
"Hey, Agumon? I actually forgot to say this before we left, but are you sure that you wanted to come with us today?"  
"Huh? Why are you asking that, Taichi?"  
"Well, it's just… you were captured and used by the Digimon Kaiser a few days ago and I kinda though maybe you needed like a few more days of rest or something…"  
"Taichi… you don't need to worry about me okay? I've been ready to get some payback on the Kaiser for a few days now!"  
"That's the spirit!" V-mon agreed with him. They're right. I'm being foolish thinking that Agumon needed some more rest or something like that. After all, he hasn't ever quit on me before and he's been through much worse than what the Kaiser did to him.

"I know that if I was captured and forced to Dark Evolve, but then rescued, I would be wanting to go straight after the Kaiser immediately, dagy-!" Armadimon suddenly stopped what he was saying as he soon began to sniff the air.  
"What is it, Armadimon?" asked Iori.  
"I smell some familiar Digimon… I think… no… I know it! Those are Pagumon I smell! There must be a village nearby!" He exclaimed. Both Takeru and I looked at each other kinda nervously upon hearing that.  
"Pagumon? A village?" Takeru questioned.  
"Bring back some bad memories, eh, Takeru-kun?" I said. He nodded. "Okay, bit of a warning for all of you new Chosen Children. Watch your backs around the Pagumon; we had a bad experience with them in our last adventure. They may only be Baby-Level Digimon but don't let that fool you. They're mischievous and they can be pretty cruel and dangerous when they're up to their own devices."

"A whole group of them actually captured an entire village of Koromon, which is my Baby-Level I might add, shortly before we arrived at it." Agumon told them.  
"And they abducted me in the middle of the night!" Patamon shouted. "I was so scared about being separated from Takeru!" Daisuke tried to stifle a chuckled but couldn't help himself.  
"You? You got captured and were scared of some weak sounding Digimon?" Takeru ran over to him and shoved him.  
"That's not funny, Daisuke-kun! You have no idea what it was like at that time with me and him!"  
"You want to back that up!? I'll take you on!"  
"Enough! Stop it, the both of you!" Hikari ran up in between them to try to break them up. The both of them stopped before quietly apologizing to one another.  
"Look, let's head over to that village, maybe they need some help or maybe they can direct us to the Dark Tower." I said.

We soon found the Pagumon village but unlike the last time, we didn't find a grand welcome. Instead, the Pagumon were all clustered up with each other in their homes in fear. Well, I guess they've got bigger concerns than trying to cause trouble for us under Etemon's orders.  
"Hello? Can anyone of you Pagumon be willing to help us?" I asked.  
"No way! Go away~!" They shouted.  
"Not a very warm welcome, eh?" Miyako muttered. Hikari walked up to one of the homes and got on her knees.  
"It's gonna be okay. You can come out. We won't hurt you." She coaxed softly. She never fails to amaze me with her kind nature. Her soft words actually got a response as several Pagumon hopped out but they all still had nervous looks on their faces. "That's it. Now tell me, what's wrong? Why are you so scared?" She asked.  
"The Digimon Kaiser!" They all cried.  
"He recently conquered this area and declared we were all his slaves!"  
"Then the Evil Rings flew out of the volcano and capture many of the Digimon in the area!"  
"We all took cover in our homes to try to avoid it! It worked but we're sure the Kaiser will be back to get us all!"

"Well, I could guess the Kaiser had something to do with this, but I still don't see no Dark Tower." Daisuke looked around.  
"That's because it's in the volcano!" We all quickly turned to the Pagumon that said that.  
"Are you serious?" Takeru questioned.  
"Yeah, we're really serious! The Kaiser put the Dark Tower in the heart of the volcano and it's now guarded by a very powerful FlareLizamon who claims to be our overseer now!" We all looked at each other once more. This was going to be a really tough fight if we're going to go after the tower. I was about to take the others in a small group huddle to discuss but it turns out the decision was already made before we could even have a chance to talk about it.  
"Don't you worry! We'll take care of that Dark Tower and the FlareLizamon for you!" Hikari declared.  
"Oh, thank you! Thank you~!" I smiled and shook my head.

 _Digital World. May 19th, 2002. 1214 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"No offence, Hikari-kun, but could you at least confer with us before you declare that we're going to help some Digimon in need?" Miyako asked as we made our march over to the volcano.  
"Sorry, Miyako-san, but I couldn't just stand by and watch those poor Digimon suffer." I apologized.  
"Well, we're going after the tower now, so there's nothing more to really talk about." Takeru concluded.  
"We could at least discuss what we're going to do when we get there. A plan on how we deal with that volcano and the tower inside it would be really smart." Iori pointed out.  
"Good idea, Iori-kun. We need to be smart and careful about all of this." Taichi said as we were now almost at the base of the volcano.  
"Jeez… it's hotter than a Japanese summer here!" complained Daisuke.  
"It's an active volcano, what were you expecting?" Miyako countered.  
"Come on, I think I can see a tunnel that we can get in through there. Be absolutely sure what you're stepping on. I don't want anyone to fall into this thing." Taichi advised. We all nodded and treaded carefully up the volcano.

After a few more minutes of scaling upward, we found that the tunnel did indeed lead into the heart of it, and if what those Pagumon said was true, the Dark Tower was inside.  
"Okay, who wants to go first?" Daisuke asked. Everyone was quiet for a second before Taichi stepped forward.  
"Come on, Agumon, let's lead the way."  
"Right behind you, Taichi!" The two of them walked ahead into the tunnel before I followed close behind. Suddenly, the whole place began to rock and the boulders above the tunnel entrance began to crumble and were about to fall on me!  
"Hikari!" Tailmon shouted as she jumped forward and kicked me out of the way of being crushed while also using the momentum to bounce backwards to avoid being crushed as well. However, the problem was now that Taichi, Agumon and myself were all cut off from the others.  
"Tailmon!" I shouted as I pounded on the collapsed rocks.  
"We're under attack!" "Look out!" "It's an ambush!" "They're all around us!" We could hear the others shout from the other end.  
"Onii-chan! What do we do?" I turned to Taichi.  
"What do you think? We've got to take out that tower now in order to help the others!" He declared.  
"With just Agumon alone?" I was really worried; did Agumon really have the strength to take out the Dark Tower and deal with that powerful FlareLizamon?  
"We've got no other choice. Stay close." Taichi got in front of me.

The closer we got to the heart of the volcano, the hotter it got. After a whole minute of walking we finally came to the wide opening of the entire volcano and surrounded by a massive moat of lava was a small rocky island with the Dark Tower on it.  
"There it is." Taichi pointed. As soon as he did that, the lava exploded and revealed the Digimon that the Pagumon warned us about. If Meramon looked like a man engulfed in fire, then FlareLizamon looked like a dinosaur that was covered in fire. The only things that were not on fire was a metal mask over his face and his three sharp claws on each hand.  
"Who dares defy the will of the Kaiser by coming here!?" He roared.  
"Careful, Taichi, Hikari. FlareLizamon is a champion amongst the flames. His Fire Tower attack is truly a force of nature."  
"Those who dare cross the Kaiser's authority shall be burnt to cinders by my claw!"  
"Then I guess we fight fire with fire. Ready, Agumon?" Taichi said.  
"Ready, Taichi!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Agumon, Armor-Evolve! Courageous Flame, KAJIGREYMON!"

"Be careful, KajiGreymon!" I warned as he jumped down towards the rock ring at the bottom of the volcano.  
"Fool! You dare challenge me!?" FlareLizamon taunted.  
"Man, you just don't shut up." KajiGreymon shook his head before he charged forward and got to grappling with the fire lizard. The two of them were pushing each other back and forth with neither wanting to give even an inch of ground.  
"Fire Tower!" FlareLizamon cried as a twister of fire burst from underneath KajiGreymon and sent him soaring above in the air.  
"KajiGreymon!" Taichi cried out for his hurt partner who was dropped back onto the ground.  
"Ugh… is that the best you got? I've taken way worse than that!" KajiGreymon shouted back.  
"Clearly you need to be taught more of a lesson! Thrust Rush!" FlareLizamon was surrounded by a ball of fire as he charged forward… however, KajiGreymon smiled.  
"Got ya!" He held the attack before tossing them both into the lava.

"KajiGreymon!" Both Taichi and I cried out. For the next few moments, there was nothing but a few lava bubbles. Then the lava exploded once more and KajiGreymon crawled out while dragging FlareLizamon by the neck… with his Evil Ring now gone, proving that KajiGreymon had won under the lava. "Alright!" We cheered. KajiGreymon turned his attention to the now exposed Dark Tower and got ready to destroy it.  
"Flare Claw!" A quick swipe of his claws and the tower began to collapse, ending the Kaiser's reign in this area… for now at least.  
"Ugh… what happened?" FlareLizamon began to get back up.  
"You were being controlled by the Digimon Kaiser." I explained.  
"But thanks to KajiGreymon you were freed." Taichi added.  
"What!? That weak lizard? No way he had beaten me!" FlareLizamon denied. All of us just rolled our eyes before we looked up to see Takeru and Miyako on their Digimon coming down from the top of the volcano to pick us up.

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. May 19th, 2002. 1320 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

The others soon returned and informed Koushiro and I of the fiery showdown they had at a volcano. Now I kinda regret not picking up Guilmon and giving a hand to that fight. Well, either way, our first mission out of Chosen HQ and it was a success; I consider it all a big win. The fight with the Kaiser was going to continue and it was going to be harder now that our Digimon were going to be unable to hold the ground we liberate just to avoid being captured. But we'll figure out how to deal with him once more and truly put him on the back foot.

We've got too much riding on us just to give up now…

* * *

So the project was actually a headquarters.

Okay, so I regret to say that I've only seen Diablomon's Counterattack once in its English form, and I remember at the begining the gang met up at what I later learned to be the middle school's computer lab, but at the time, I though Koushiro found some warehouse that they were using as a kind of a base and that just spun off from there.

Alright, I'll try to get the Wild West episode out sooner so take care everyone.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	16. Sundown Showdown! Starmon and Revolmon!

Hello, sorry this would've have been done sooner but sometimes I let myself get distracted for too long.

So... here we are... last day of the year. It hasn't been too bad, at least to me personally, I mean, I did watch the final .tri movies so that's clearly a good thing.

Shoutouts for the reviews left by **GreenD109** , **MadDogLucario96** , **God of the Challenge** , and **DigimonAT0318**.

All that said, let's move on. It seems Sora seems to have wandered into a bit of a predicament...

* * *

 **Chapter 15: Sundown Showdown! Starmon and Revolmon!**

 _Digital World. May 25th, 2002. 0942 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Sora Takenouchi_

I skip tennis practice for today and what do I get for it: I get pursued by a swarm of Airdramon hot on Birdramon's tail! I thought today might be quiet and that Piyomon and I could at least survey the Digital World in order to give the guys a hand with what our next move is. I still really can't believe that I can come home and find Piyomon waiting for me. Mom and her got along beautifully, but then again, they both came and saved me from Phantomon during the fight against Vamdemon. Dad was also home for a few days as well, and he's adjusted to her quite well. Of course, he has a lot of questions which I think he's relating back to his studies… I just hope he doesn't use her in a lecture. Back to the crisis at hand, all was well the moment we arrived. Takeo was staying at the new headquarters and although he said I probably should've waited from some of the others to come around, I assured him I would be fine. Big mistake. After a few minutes of flying through the air, a whole group of controlled Airdramon jumped us in some rocky canyons and were now trying to blast us out of the sky.

"Birdramon! You've got to go faster! They're getting closer!" I shouted.  
"I'm trying, Sora! But I just can't shake them off!" Another blast nearby rocked us.  
"Try to avoid them for a bit longer, I'm sending a message!" I had my D-Terminal and was typing 'Emergency! Send help!' I managed to hit send but then Birdramon was struck in the wing and we began falling out of the sky!  
"Sora!" "Birdramon!" We screamed for each other. Birdramon managed to keep me from hitting the ground, but that didn't stop her from taking the full force of the crash when we slammed into the ground. When the dust cleared, I looked back and saw Piyomon in terrible shape.  
"Piyomon!" I cried as I ran over to her.  
"So…ra…" She moaned before she closed her eyes. There were only two pieces of good news right now. The first one was that the Airdramon that followed us had went away, probably thinking that they finished us off or something. The other was a town I could see in the distance, which may be a good place to hold up until help arrives, or at least get Piyomon out of the sun. Hang on, Piyomon. I'll get you to safety.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

In Hikari's room, Tailmon was looking at her reflection in the mirror while grooming her ears and humming a song.  
"Tailmon, hurry up!" Hikari insisted.  
"Just a second, my fur is sticking up…" She told her. "Besides, isn't there a human saying about not rushing things like 'Rome wasn't built in a day.'?"  
"No, but it burned down in one." Hikari chuckled. "That's a joke Ross-chan has in response to that quote. Come on, already!"  
"Okay, let's go!" Tailmon jumped off the table.  
"You're always grooming…"  
"Is that so bad? Stop teasing me!"  
"But we're just going for a walk." The two of them headed out, but Hikari left her D-Terminal and would be unaware of the SOS signal that Sora sent out.

Meanwhile, Takeru and Patamon were dead tired and sleeping hard as a reward for all the hard work they had been doing for the Digital World.  
"Patamon…" Takeru muttered in his sleep.  
"Takeru…" At Daisuke's apartment, he had just come back into his room after a large breakfast.  
"Aah, I'm full!" He said as he stretched his arms while Chibimon was playing with the D-Terminal.  
"You ate so much in the morning already…" Chibimon reminded.  
"Chibimon, you too. I'm going bankrupt this month!" Chibimon was practically unobservant to all the empty boxes and bowls of food around him. The D-Terminal chimed as Sora's message flashed on it and Chibimon's mood darkened.  
"Daisuke!"

"Emergency! Send help... Sora." Iori read off the message at his own home. Behind him, Upamon had put himself in Iori's kendo equipment and somehow was swinging the Shinai. "Upamon, we've got a problem!"  
"What's wrong, dagyaa?" Iori just picked him up and placed him under his shirt as he ran outside and headed to the headquarters. As he was running right past the Inoue's store, he was quickly knocked off his feet as he accidently blindsided Miyako who was caring multiple boxes of food.  
"Miyako-san, I'm sorry!" He apologized.  
"Iori, it's you! It's not like you to rush…"  
"I got an e-mail from Sora-san!"  
"Dagyaa!" Upamon shouted from under Iori's shirt.  
"From Sora-san?" Miyako questioned. After quickly helping cleaning up the mess the two of them made, they headed to the headquarters with the Digimon in tow.  
"Hurry up, you two!" Ken exclaimed as he rolled by them on his bike.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"I freaking warned her not to go!" Takeo shouted as we walked in, finding Daisuke the only Chosen Child present.  
"Warned who about what?" Ken asked.  
"Sora and Piyomon were here earlier and decided to check out things in the Digital World. I tried to tell her to wait for one of you to show up just to give her some backup but she went ahead anyways! Now she's apparently in trouble."  
"Takeru and Hikari-chan?" Daisuke questioned. I guess he was expecting them to be with us.  
"They're not here with you?" I said as we both pulled our Digimon out from under our shirts.  
"Maybe they didn't notice the e-mail." Iori guessed. Though that is very strange, it's not like them to miss something like this.  
"They could be on a date!" I suggested.  
"Eh!" Daisuke quickly jumped out of the chair he was sitting in.  
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!"

"Well, is anyone else coming, Takeo-san?" Ken wondered.  
"I don't know. I have no idea what the others are doing right now."  
"Then we'll go without them."  
"Alright." Daisuke nodded as I walked over to the computer screen.  
"I got the area where Sora might be, but I can't be sure. It's within in the general area where she went, but you'll probably have to look around. Word of warning: you're on the frontier of the Kaiser's territory; Koushiro thinks his territorial expansions are all being focused in this region."  
"Don't worry, we'll be extra careful today, Takeo-san." Iori assured him.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" I cried.

Just our luck, we get transported to a desert with a sandstorm raging at the moment. Daisuke used his goggles to cover his eyes but the rest of us had no real way of shielding our eyes other than by covering them. By the time it died down, we could now see we were in the middle of what I had to assume was a junkyard what with the burnout cars, wrecked televisions and other trashed appliances. We looked ahead of us and could see a small town with a water tower up ahead. The thing about the town was… it looked familiar.  
"It's a town that you'd see in the Wild West of America!" Daisuke exclaimed. I took another look around and like with that volcano, something was missing.  
"I can't see any Dark Tower." Iori observed.  
"There has to be one somewhere…" I said.  
"Maybe there's a clue about it somewhere in town." Ken started to walk forward with all of us following.

As we got into down, the place was really eerie.  
"Ken-chan… this place gives me the creeps." Wormmon was worried.  
"I'm with you, Wormmon. This place is like a ghost town, dagyaa!" Armadimon agreed. The sounds of silence were interrupted when we heard an old time piano beginning to play.  
"What's that?" I wondered.  
"Sounds like a piano playing." Iori said.  
"Well, if there's a piano playing, then there's only one place it would be. Let's go check out the saloon." Daisuke pointed to the building. We all ran after him and walked in through the swinging doors. We saw the place was empty though the piano was here, but it must have been one of those automated players as nobody was on it while it kept up its song.  
"Hello?" "Anybody here?" "Excuse me?" "Anyone?" We all called out through the saloon to get someone's attention if they were there.

"It's a Digital World!" A voice cried out. "Welcome to Wild West Town…" We all turned to the bar as we heard the voice from that direction. "I'm this town's defender of justice… Starmon!" Sliding up from behind the bar was a large silver star Digimon with boots, gloves, and a large cowboy hat. "You look mighty parched. Take a seat while I get you something." We all took his offer and sat at the bar before he poured a bunch of mugs full of some white liquid and slid them down to us. I hope that isn't alcohol, none of us are of the drinking age. "This town welcomes you all. Have some Welcome Milk!" Oh it's just milk.  
"Welcome Milk?" Ken questioned.  
"The air is dry here in Wild West Town, so we get thirsty. Once again, welcome!" He began drinking his own mug of milk. "Aah, delicious."  
"Well, I guess now that you mention it, I'm thirsty." Daisuke admitted.  
"Me too." Both I and Iori said.  
"What hospitality from this defender of justice!" V-mon cried. "Thanks!"  
"Thanks!" We all said as we took a drink from our mugs too.  
"Good drinking."

"By the way…" I spoke up.  
"What is it?" Starmon asked as he walked to the other end of the bar with his back to us.  
"Have you seen a girl with red hair? Goes by the name Takenouchi Sora? She had a Piyomon with her?" I asked.  
"Sora? Piyomon?"  
"Did either of them come through town?"  
"Yes! I have!" He turned to us. We all got excited to hear that. "I've also been searching for them. Finger snap…" He muttered to himself as he did what he said. He turned his back to us again and suddenly a whole digital wall of wanted posters appeared with a 'Wanted: Dead or Alive' reward for both Sora and Piyomon!  
"What?! A wanted poster! What have they done!?" I shouted.  
"They escaped here from the Digimon Kaiser… So, as sheriff, I was looking to protect them."  
"Well, that's a relief… judging from those posters, I thought they had done something bad." Iori said.  
"Iori-kun… no way either of them could do something bad." I told him.

"Indeed…" assured Starmon.  
"Unless Piyomon was controlled by an Evil Ring or something…" Daisuke pointed out which caused Starmon to have a spit take where he shot his milk upward like some sort of milk fountain. He then tried to cough the rest of it out.  
"Ah, I beg your pardon…" He took off his hat… and revealed a disturbing object attached to his head.  
"An Evil Ring!" We all shouted.  
"I thought it was strange… there are no defenders of justice in the Digimon Kaiser's towns!" V-mon dismissed.  
"That's not what you said before at all!" Daisuke reminded him.  
"Those who say they're on the side of justice end up being no good…" Armadimon said.  
"Now it's a bit too late to say that." Iori countered. I wonder though how he feels about that line… considering his father was a police officer.  
"Oh well, you found me out!" Starmon threw his hat in the air and his eyes turned from normal blue eyes to red ones. "Digimon Kaiser-sama's orders were very clear. 'Any Chosen Children that are found are to be executed immediately, for crimes committed against the ruler of the Digital World; such crimes included insurrection and carrying acts of terror against the Kaiser.'"  
"Wait!? What!? We're the terrorists!?" Daisuke exclaimed.

"Oh, Osamu… have you really gone that far? To be willing to have us all executed for fighting you?" Ken whispered to himself. "Where's the Digimon Kaiser now?" He asked Starmon.  
"He's making an Evil Spiral…" Starmon chuckled. "…better… no, much better~!" We took the opportunity of him having his back turned to run out the door and get out of town, as it sounded like Sora and Piyomon weren't here and we were not sticking around to deal with Starmon. "Meteor Squall!" We heard Starmon yell and suddenly the whole sky began falling on us as these meteors were exploding all around us. We all were eventually struck by the blasts and could no longer escape. Starmon laughed the entire time as he tied us up then threw us into the jail before locking the cell door.  
"I guess I'll go make a scaffold in the graveyard for you…" He laughed once more as he walked out. We all looked out the window to see a large gallows that apparently was out near the graveyard.  
"Dammit!" Daisuke cursed.  
"Guys…?" A voice from the dark corner of the cell moaned.  
"Sora-san!" We all exclaimed.

 _P.O.V. – Sora Takenouchi_

The others quickly ran over to where Piyomon and I were holding in the cell.  
"Sora-san! You're alright!" Miyako exclaimed.  
"Yeah…" I nodded. "Thanks to Piyomon… but she…"  
"She looks really bad." Ken observed.  
"She took a hard hit after those Airdramon shot us out of the sky. She's been asleep ever since."  
"So… what happened?" Daisuke asked.  
"We were trying to escape a pack of the Kaiser's Airdramon that got the jump on us and we fell near here… at first everything was fine as I carried Piyomon into town to try to get her some help… I thought maybe it was a lucky break when Starmon welcomed us with some milk."  
"Let me guess, he attacked you as you walked up to the town." Iori assumed. I nodded once more.  
"That Meteor Squall attack devastated us. I was barely conscious when I saw that cruel sheriff practically stomp on Piyomon's head!"  
"That explains why you look somewhat ragged as well." Miyako observed.  
"We've been here for most of the day, just waiting for Starmon to finish constructing that gallows which he's going to hang us from."

Our conversation was soon interrupted when we heard moaning in my lap, meaning that Piyomon was coming to.  
"Piyomon!" I cried.  
"Are… are… are you okay, Sora?" I almost had tears in my eyes.  
"Me? Am I okay? I was more concerned about you being okay!"  
"It's alright… I've suffered much worse…"  
"Well, at least we're okay… for now. But with what you just said, Sora-san… we need to get out of here now before we find ourselves hanging from the rope." Ken looked around the room for a way out or something.  
"Allow me! V-mon Head!" V-mon charged into the back wall but it was so thick, all it left was an imprint of his face. "That's a tough wall…"

"Armadimon." Iori spoke up.  
"What, dagyaa?"  
"Armor-Evolve into Digmon and break the wall."  
"Well, about that…"  
"What is it?"  
"I'm too hungry." Armadimon's stomach growled.  
"That's right… we didn't have breakfast…"  
"Dagyaa…"  
"Huh?" Piyomon perked up as she heard a sound from outside.  
"What's wrong?" I asked.  
"I heard something!" We heard what sounded like a horse before spur boots began walking towards the door.  
"It's getting closer…" Miyako whispered.

The door swung open and a weird Digimon was looking right at us. It had arms and legs and wore a cowboy hat, but it's chest was just one big revolver, not to mention the two smaller ones he had in his hand.  
"Ally of justice~! ...Revolmon." The gun Digimon cried. None of us were really convinced with this guy. He ran right up to the gate. "H-hey, what is it!? You don't believe me!?"  
"Those who say they're on the side of justice end up being no good…" Armadimon told him.  
"Exactly!" Iori chimed in.  
"I bet there's an Evil Ring under that hat!" V-mon accused.  
"You kiddin' me? The Digimon Kaiser could never control me!" He took off his hat. "Look!"

"Then, the scarf!" Miyako suggested.  
"Look!"  
"Boots!" Iori said next.  
"Look!"  
"Gloves!" I spoke up.  
"Look!"  
"Shirt!" Ken's turn.  
"Look!"  
"Pants!" Miyako said again.  
"Look!"  
"Underwear!" We all quickly doubled back to look at Daisuke.  
"Look look lo- Don't-don't-don't look! That's enough!" Revolmon quickly got his clothes back on.

"You mean… you really came to rescue us!?" Miyako couldn't believe it, much like the rest of us.  
"Geez… exactly!"  
"Hooray!" We all cheered.  
"I want to play cards with the girls!"  
"Ehhh!?"  
"So I'll only rescue the girls."  
"No way!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Rescue us too, please…" V-mon cried.  
"I don't want to play cards with the guys…"  
"I knew he was no good, dagyaa…" Armadimon said with scorn.  
"Rather than no good, I'd say he's strange." Iori believed. He thinks strange, I think pervert; why else would he only rescue us? Revolmon aimed for the gate and fired a shot that opened the door.  
"Girls, out." He motioned.  
"What about us?" Piyomon and Hawkmon asked. He shrugged his shoulders and led us out to his coach while locking the door on the guys with a multitude of locks and handcuffs! We then got on the coach that was being pulled by a non-existent horse.  
"Off we go!"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

After a little bit, the door opened once again and it turned out to be Starmon who was whistling to himself before he sat at a desk and pulled out a lunchbox. I guess it was his lunch time.  
"Thanks for the meal!" He shouted to himself. He then probably noticed all the locks on the gate and turned to us. "Huh? No way!" He must have thought that all of had escaped… until we walked forward.  
"Revolmon came and took the girls." Daisuke informed.  
"He said he only wanted to play cards with the girls." Ken added.  
"Strange, isn't he?" I said. I swear, I could see a rage bar above Starmon as he exploded in anger.  
"Damn Revolmon! I'll get you once and for all!" He ran right back out the door, clearly preparing to hunt down the gun Digimon.  
"Daisuke…" V-mon spoke up.  
"What?" Daisuke asked. We looked down to see all three Digimon with their mouths wide open and drooling a river.  
"There… lunch." We looked to the table to see that Starmon had left his food.

"If I eat that, I can Armor-Evolve to Digmon and bust our way out, dagyaa!" Armadimon informed.  
"If I could get loose from these ropes, I could use a Silk Thread to bring us the food." Wormmon told us.  
"Armadimon." I got him to turn his attention back to me.  
"What, dagyaa?"  
"Imagine my rope was food and bite it."  
"Food?"  
"Just do it. We don't have much time."  
"Okay, okay!"

After a few minutes, Armadimon chewed his way out and soon got V-mon and Wormmon freed.  
"Daisuke, just a little more!" V-mon almost finished untying Daisuke before he completed his task.  
"Thank you, V-mon!"  
"No problem!"  
"Okay, Wormmon, your turn." Ken said. Wormmon nodded.  
"Alright… hold me steady." Ken grabbed Wormmon and placed him on his shoulder like he was a rocket launcher. "Almost… almost… got it! Silk Thread!" Wormmon shot out his silk and it latched onto the food. He then pulled it back to the gate.

"I'm fine. You eat it, Armadimon." I told him. He needed it way more than I did.  
"Thanks, dagyaa… Thanks for the meal!"  
"Ken-chan…?" Wormmon didn't feel that comfortable eating while Ken didn't have anything.  
"It's alright, Wormmon. You're gonna need it if we're going to take on Starmon." He told him. At the same time, V-mon was practically biting his nails as he wanted some as well.  
"You ate plenty this morning! Control yourself." reminded Daisuke.  
"Want some?" Armadimon offered.  
"Yeah!" The three Digimon began scoffing down the sandwiches.  
"I'm so full!" "That was good!" "Thanks for the meal!"

"Iori, I'm ready to go now, dagyaa!" informed Armadimon.  
"Right. Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" He walked over to the back wall of the cell. "I'll take care of it!" He was very quick with his drilling as no wall stood a chance against him.  
"You did it!" The rest of us cheered.  
"Daisuke, Ken, it's our turn!" V-mon cried.  
"Right." The both of them nodded. "Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Storm of Friendship, LIGHDRAMON!" "Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!" We then all headed out to rescue the girls from Revolmon and Starmon.

 _P.O.V. – Sora Takenouchi_

"Maybe if we all charge him at once?" Miyako suggested. Revolmon had taken us to a grassy ranch not far from the town before he pulled up a table and began wildly shuffling the cards. Meanwhile, Miyako and I were trying to figure out a way to get away from him and rescue the others.  
"That won't be easy… you saw how he uses those guns…"  
"Alright!" Revolmon jumped on the table as he finished shuffling the cards. "Well then, let the great card game between Revolmon-sama, the girls and their Digimon begin! Applause! Cheer!" We all clapped in order not to get on his bad side.  
"Let's just play like he wants…" I whispered.  
"Okay."  
"Let's see… I start by raising two-hundred." Revolmon pushed some of his chips forward.

The hand Revolmon had was soon blown away as a shot tore through his cards.  
"Who was that!?" He demanded an answer as he jumped on the table again.  
"Revolmon! It's me." Starmon called out from the direction of the town. Great, just what we needed.  
"So it's you, Starmon…"  
"Revolmon, I challenge you to a duel!"  
"A duel? Fine by me!" Oh, this really is not what we needed!

After a minute of quietly talking to each other, the two of them stood back to back.  
"Three steps and draw." Starmon established the rules to Revolmon.  
"Three steps, fine by me."  
"I never saw this coming…" Miyako admitted.  
"Yeah… although I guess it comes with the territory of a town set in the Wild West." I said.  
"So who do we want to win?" Piyomon wondered.  
"I guess Revolmon." Hawkmon decided. "All we have to do is play cards with him as opposed to meeting the hangman."

The two Digimon began stepping forward as they took their paces.  
"One…" "Two…" "Three…" Revolmon turned right before Starmon said three and grazed him with a bullet.  
"I win."  
"You… didn't even take three steps!" Starmon accused Revolmon of cheating… which he did.  
"You heard me, right? Three steps are fine by me."  
"Th… that's not fair…"  
"Victory is justice… Justice Bullet!" Revolmon fired a large bullet from his chest which blasted near the ground forcing Starmon to run away, all the while he kept firing. "Justice! Justice! Justice! Justice! Justice! Justice! Justice! Justice!"  
"I don't know who has the Evil Ring anymore…" I moaned.  
"Yeah… it's like the Gokimon brothers all over again." Miyako recalled the first time she met Mimi and when Palmon Armor-Evolved into Konteimon.

"Justice! Justice! Justi…" And now it looks like Revolmon just ran out of ammo. "I… uh… ran out of ammo…" Knew it. Starmon was white hot with anger now as he was ready to rain down the most devastating storm of fury on Revolmon.  
"I'll crush you! Meteor Squall!" Revolmon was quickly hit with the storm of meteors and crashed into the ground next to us. "You're next…" Starmon referred to us. "It's time for your execution!"  
"Sora!" "Miyako-san!" Our Digimon got in front of us.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Lighdramon! Go after!" Daisuke ordered as he and Lighdramon charged ahead of me and Tetermon. Lighdramon jumped over the girls and charged forward towards Starmon.  
"Quiet! Meteor Squall!" The storm of meteors struck once more which blasted the two of them into the air.  
"Daisuke-kun!" "V-mon!" Both Tetermon and I shouted as we flew as fast as we could to rescue them before they hit the ground. We timed it close but Tetermon was able to catch V-mon while I grabbed Daisuke's hand, but he was still dangling above the ground below.  
"Thanks, Ken-kun!" He said.  
"No problem, you'd do the same for me!"  
"Let me go!" V-mon cried to Tetermon. "I'll attack him as Fladramon!"  
"Leave this to us!" Sora and Miyako shouted from below. "Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!" "Piyomon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Love, ROBINMON!"

"What?!" Starmon quickly panicked as the two birds took to the skies. They then dived on him and picked him up. "Put me down! Put me down! I ain't meant to fly!"  
"With pleasure!" They both stated. "Tempest Wing!" "Cyclone Burst!" Starmon was caught up in the giant tornado they created and spun around until he was launched back towards town where he crashed right through his giant gallows in the cemetery. As it turned out, the Dark Tower was actually being covered up by it which explained why we couldn't find it! The sheer force of Starmon crashing into it caused the tower to come down, thus freeing the area from the Kaiser's control.

"The Dark Tower was here?" Daisuke questioned as we all walked to the cemetery to meet up with Iori who stayed in town.  
"It must have been buried by the sandstorm…" Iori observed.  
"And then what was still exposed was covered up by the gallows." I added as Starmon got back up with his Evil Ring now destroyed.  
"The good news is that Wild West Town is free from the Digimon Kaiser's control." Sora said.  
"And we found and saved you, let's not forget that." Miyako reminded why we were here in the first place.  
"Yes, that too… thank you, everyone."  
"Well then…" Revolmon climbed up on top of the destroyed tower. "This case has been solved." Wait, was he a detective or a bandit? "Let's play cards, everyone!" We all collectively fell to our knees in exhaustion. That guy will never give up.

"Sora-san? Shouldn't we go home?" Iori asked as we had been playing several hands with Starmon and Revolmon in the saloon.  
"I guess…"  
"You can't go!" Both Digimon exclaimed.  
"We've had enough!" We all cried. I then sighed and slid half my chips into the pile as the turn had a 9, a 5, and two Aces.  
"Ken-chan? What do those two A's mean?" Wormmon asked as he was looking at my hand.  
"W-Wormmon! You're not supposed to tell!" I shouted.  
"Nope." "I'm done." "I fold." "Nah." The rest of the table began to put down their cards as they folded leaving me the winner of the pot. I suddenly began to snicker before laughing.  
"Well done, Wormmon." I then revealed my hand to show that I had a 2 and a 4 for my hand.  
"Ehhh!?"  
"Wow, Ken… you are evil." Daisuke said.  
"Sorry, but I said before, I get competitive!" Everyone soon laughed after that.

It's still nice that despite everything that's happened, we can still laugh…

* * *

I am really proud about that last paragraph. Certainly better than if Ross was there, he would've just been singing _'Wild Wild West'_.

One little thing to note, if you want a theme song for the Chosen Children in their war against the Kaiser, I thought _'May 10th, 1940'_ by Michael Giacchino would be a perfect fit... then again... that just signifies how much of a nerd I am, of which my own theme song would be _'White n Nerdy'_. Heh.

See you all in a few days when it will be a new year... and get ready for eldritch abominations.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	17. The Call of Madness! The Dark World!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Shoutout to **sarajama95** for the faves and follows.

And of course to reviews from **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , **Whiteling** , and **Vietnam123** , thanks.

Sorry, this was going to be done sooner but I spent all of yesterday watching a playthrough of South Park: The Fractured But Whole. Funniest moment in the game was when the New Kid and Scott Malkinson (Captain Diabetes) are cornered by Italian gangsters, Randy bursts into the room, pants down around his legs, drunk on red wine, and yelling for his keys. Oh, Randy...

Anyways, shall we enter a really dark place?

* * *

 **Chapter 16: The Call of Madness! The Dark World!**

 _'ngathf lgan'hagw heyl'R uhluhtC hfan'wlgm iulgn'hP'_

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. June 3rd, 2002. 0733 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

For the Chosen Children, the war continued without any true delay. With the change in their strategy thanks to the creation of the Evil Spiral and the fact that they didn't want their partners to be capture and used for the Kaiser's twisted ambitions, beating him back was taking more effort. Coupled with the problem that they had their own lives like attending school and not being able to focus all their time and effort to fighting in the Digital World as opposed to the Kaiser was also taxing. Still, they carried out the fight, hopeful of a big break or something that would change the tide of war and give them victory over the Kaiser once and for all. On the warm Monday morning of June 3rd, two of children would be pushed into a much darker place that they never expected when their adventures begun once more.

It was getting close to classes starting for the elementary students and all the kids were converging on the school. Takeru was running a bit late so he was trying to catch up to Iori and Miyako who were well ahead of him. He did see Hikari who was moving a bit slower and tried to reach out to her but she quickly turned to him with a scared look on her face.  
"Onii-chan!" She stated which confused Takeru. "Takeru-kun…? Good morning!" She chuckled nervously. Daisuke quickly ran up next to them before Takeru could ask about her confusion.  
"Good morning! Hurry up or we'll be late!" They both quickly followed his advice and ran after him to make it to their homeroom. Up in a nearby tree, Patamon and Tailmon were looking over the school.  
"Hikari looks full of energy." Patamon observed.  
"We never change, but children keep growing up…" Tailmon said.  
"What's wrong?"  
"Nothing… It's just that… it seems like Hikari is feeling something…"  
"Something?"  
"I don't know, maybe it's my imagination. Bye." She crawled back into the tree.  
"Wait, I'm going too!"

Homeroom had been going on for a few minutes and already much of the class was bored with what the teacher was saying. Takeru looked over to Hikari and saw she was still… a bit to still which looked very unnatural. For Hikari, she soon began hearing the sounds of water sloshing and being shifted like the sound of the tide coming in before she soon realized a dark fog was beginning to materialize around her. The other students didn't notice and slowly they began to fade. The classroom began to fade and the fog continued to grow thicker.  
"What… is… this…?" She muttered to herself. She soon looked down and saw her desk and her legs were leg deep in dark greyish water. She soon came to realize that she was now isolated in an ocean of darkness.

Meanwhile, Takeru was still looking at Hikari before his eyes widened as he noticed something was wrong with her. He could see that she was beginning to get all blurry and static like a corrupted VHS tape.  
"Hikari-chan!" He shouted. The whole class looked back at him and the lesson was stopped due to his interruption. However, Hikari suddenly looked fine and looked back at him too.  
"What's going on?" Daisuke whispered, mostly to himself. Hikari began to put her hand to her head and almost fell out of her seat, but she was quickly caught by the girl that sat behind her.  
"Are you alright, Yagami-kun? Go rest at the nurse's office." The teacher suggested.  
"Yes…" Hikari agreed and slowly got up. She quickly nodded 'Thank you' to her classmate that helped from falling on the floor before she walked out of the room.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

These past few days have been nothing but a mess for me. I've been plagued with these nightmares about a dark place, a sort of vile ocean if I could put it into words. At first, I thought it was just a bad dream or something, but the frequency of them says otherwise. And now with what just happened a few seconds ago in class… I fear I'm beginning to lose it. I walked out into the hallway where I could hear the early gym class doing all their exercises outside, what with the chanting and whistle blowing.  
 _"_ _It's been a long time since I've felt like this…"_ My mind flashed back to our previous adventures involving the Digimon which is when I felt these feelings before… the cold… the darkness.  
"I'm sorry, Onii-chan, Ross-chan…" I looked over and saw a younger version of myself apologizing to both younger versions of Taichi and Ross. I quickly looked back forward. Come on, Hikari, pull yourself together.

I froze in fear as I heard a water droplet hit the floor. Soon, more drops began to make noise and I knew for a fact we didn't have a pipe burst or something of that nature. I could feel a dark presence beginning to loom over me. I wonder if the others also experience this or if that just comes with the nature of being the bearer of the Crest of Light. The drops began to sound like there were even more of them and all in a certain location rather than all around me. I slowly began to turn around to look and my eyes suddenly widened. I could see at the stairwell far behind me a black being with glowing red eyes staring at me with water dripping around it. It made a low growling noise and slowly shifted, like it was about to begin moving. I opened my mouth in an attempt to scream out to hopefully get someone's attention but no sound came out.

 _P.O.V – Takeru Takaishi_

Class was almost over but I couldn't wait any longer. I know what I saw, I saw Hikari beginning to fade out and that was truly troubling. I got up out of my seat and headed out of the classroom. I guess maybe the class can assume that I had to use the bathroom or something but I was actually running down to the nurse's station to check on Hikari. After running for a minute or two, I finally reached the room down on the first floor before I knocked on the open door.  
"Excuse me! Um… how is Yagami-kun?" The nurse looked at me confused.  
"Eh? No one came here." My eyes widened upon hearing that news. I then looked over to the bed to see that there was no one in it which made my fears grows. I soon began running all over the school trying to look for her. If she didn't make it to the nurse's station…  
"Then wh… where did she go…?" I said aloud. "She couldn't have…" I ran to the computer lab but then I quickly remembered that we had switched out the computers for the headquarters but I guess going to the lab to go to the Digital World had become second nature to me or something. But my concerns were still there. Did Hikari go home or did she go to the Digital World? "She couldn't' have just disappeared… could she?"

Once more I began running around, desperate for any sign of her. After all, she could be in trouble or hurt or… she's right there. I looked out the window of the skyway to see Hikari was outside sitting on one of the benches near the playground field. She had a downtrodden look on her face, but she appeared fine for the time being. I moved quickly to where she was and hoping that she wouldn't move where I would have to find her again. I ran past some kids who were playing some soccer right now before I walked up to her.  
"I…" She said, although I don't know if she even realizes I'm here.  
"You what?" I asked. She quickly looked up and saw that I was here before she looked down once more.  
"I was at the ocean…"  
"The ocean? You walked down to the beach?"  
"No, not the bay, but… a different kind of ocean. I… might be going away…"  
"Huh?"  
"I felt… someone calling me… a presence that was trying to pull me to them."  
"Someone…? Who?" I questioned.  
"I don't know…" She sighed.

"Hikari-chan… what's going on? What's wrong?"  
"I don't know… I'm afraid… I'm afraid the next time they call me… I may end up there…"  
"But that's… Who would do something like that?" I had anger in my voice. Was someone threating Hikari?  
"Onii-chan… Ross-chan… they always protected me during times like these… I've tried to be strong… but I'm not like them… I'm not strong like they are… always able to stare down their fears and overcome them… but I just can't…  
"Taichi-san… Ross-san… It's always Taichi-san and Ross-san… You're always depending on them! You can't do that! You have to know that they won't always be there for you in life and that you are going to have to fight your own battles. And not only that… this thing… this voice that's calling you! You can't just quit and let that thing win; I care too much about you to let anyone take you without a fight!" That last part I didn't mean to say, it just slipped out. Hikari caught it and looked back at me. I didn't say nothing as I was now embarrassed that I accidently admitted to Hikari my feelings for her. I then sighed. "I'm sorry… I don't… I didn't mean… Hikari-chan… you should probably just go home for the rest of the day."  
"I think you might be right." She said, not saying anything about what was just said.  
"I'll see you tomorrow…" I began to walk away to head back to class.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Hikari had taken Takeru's advice and had gathered up her things to head home. However, by the time she reached the edge of the main school gate and looked out to the bay, she soon began to fall under a trance.

"The ocean…" She said as she begun to walk across the street. Tailmon was up in the same tree from earlier taking a nap when she woke up and saw Hikari walking across the street.  
"Hikari?" She jumped out of the tree and attempted to follow her but when she reached the ground, her eyes widened as she saw that Hikari had stopped at some nearby steps that led to the bay. Hikari then began to do the same thing that Takeru had noticed and Tailmon was quickly worried. She was about to cross the street but a large truck had driven by and Tailmon had to stop. By the time it passed, Hikari had vanished and her backpack floated in the air for a second before falling to the ground. "Hikari…!"

"So what are you doing again?" Daisuke asked as he met up with Miyako and Iori in the computer room. Although they didn't go to the Digital World from there anymore, it was still a place to meet up before heading out and their Digimon were staying in there during the school day.  
"I thought I could expand the D-Terminal's protocol." Miyako informed.  
"What do you mean? Can you explain that in Japanese?" Takeru opened the door to the computer room and walked in with a down look on his face. The only one to really notice him was Daisuke who turned his head to him.  
"I think it would be great if we could communicate with the Digital World in real time, not just through mail like we have before."  
"That would make us better coordinated especially if we launched a large attack with everyone like we did at the start of last month." Iori agreed. "Besides, I'm sure the Digimon Kaiser is already doing so.  
"I see…" Daisuke began to understand. "If only we knew where he is now…"  
"Don't worry, Daisuke!" Chibimon hopped onto his shoulder. "We'll find him and stop him from capturing any more of the Digital World!"  
"Takeru, what's wrong?" Patamon asked. "You don't look good…"  
"It's nothing…" The door opened again to reveal Tailmon who was out of breath.  
"Hikari…! She's gone!"  
"Eh!?"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

I opened my eyes after closing them and instead of finding the waters of Tokyo Bay; I instead found a sight I didn't want to see. It was that fog and ocean again, and it was in a place devoid of any color or really light. I could see a lighthouse up ahead but instead of shining a bright light, it was shining a light of pure darkness. I had been called to the world that had been haunting my dreams.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Disappeared…? What kind of crazy talk is that?" Daisuke questioned what Tailmon had just told us. "We can't go to the Digital World unless we open the gate at the headquarters!" Daisuke was thinking that Hikari might have been transported to the Digital World.  
"For Hikari-chan… it may be different." I admitted.  
"What are you talking about?"  
"Um…" Iori tried to speak up but was interrupted by Miyako.  
"Nothing… with the current system we have in place, we can't know where Hikari-chan is!"  
"Then she's got to be in the Digital World!" Daisuke guessed. "Let's get to headquarters and open the gate!"  
"Daisuke-san…" Iori tried speaking again but was interrupted by Daisuke this time.  
"We're going to bring her back… quickly!"  
"Please listen to me!" Iori shouted. "We don't know exactly where Hikari-san is. If we open a gate at random, we'll only get lost in such a vast place."

"It's not the Digital World." I said.  
"Huh?"  
"The ocean…" I recalled what Hikari was saying earlier. "Yeah, the ocean!" I grabbed my things and ran out of the room and headed down towards the bay. I got across the street where I found Hikari's backpack. I quickly looked inside and found her D-3 and D-Terminal… wherever she was, she was almost completely defenseless.  
"Hikari-chan!" I yelled out towards the bay. I then started walking along the beach.  
"Is this where Hikari is?" Patamon asked.  
"I saw Hikari turning into digital data…" informed Tailmon. "Are you sure she's not in the Digital World?"  
"She's not." I told them. "Not the Digital World we always go to."

"Damn it!" I swung at the air as I was more just trying to hit my fist on something but there was nothing around. "I saw it too. I saw Hikari-chan starting to disappear… and I did nothing to try and help!"  
"But, but… then, where did she go?" Patamon wondered.  
"I don't know…" I was beginning to break down. "I don't know, but I have to find her!" I pulled out my D-3. "I have this thing, but it's useless now!" I kept walking until I found myself on the edge of Daiba Park. "I said something horrible to Hikari-chan…"  
"Eh? What?" Patamon asked as a helicopter flew over us.  
"I should be protecting her, and still… She was scared that she wasn't as strong as Ross-san or Taichi-san and I got upset at her about that."  
"Hikari isn't weak." Tailmon said. I turned to look at her. "Hikari is strong. But that's because she has friends who help her."  
"But… What can I do for her right now!?"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"Where… am I…? Isn't this the Digital World…?" I muttered to myself as I was beginning to walk through a small town. I couldn't exactly tell where it was from but it looked New England in nature, like maybe a small fishing town in Connecticut or Massachusetts. I was walking in the alleyways when I encountered a sign. It was in Digi code but Koushiro had once been nice enough to show me what the basic symbols for the alphabet were. If I was reading it right, I think that this was the name of the town and the letters spelled out 'Innsmouth'. Huh… that sounds familiar, but I can't place it. I eventually ended up walking out of town and unto the large beach beside it, towards the lighthouse, where I noticed a large tunnel that was in the cliffside. Above it was a large forest, but even that was faded in its color. I don't know what was going through my mind but I felt like something was compelling me to go to the tunnel… or maybe I was just morbidly curious about what was inside it. Still, either way, I feared I was going to hate the answer.

I started to walk into the tunnel, the only light was a string of bulbs that were barely illuminating the tunnel and the further I got away from the entrance, the darker it became.  
 _"_ _This… this is scary…"_ I thought to myself. _"I don't have to do this… Why am I?"_ I stopped as I begun to hear noises coming from up ahead. It sounded like there were people or Digimon moaning. I got a bit closer and I soon saw the same glowing red eyes from earlier in the school.  
"Wh… who's that?" I questioned. "Who's there?" No answer. "Who's there!?" I took another step forward and could now see strange creatures all writhing in pain. "Are you… Digimon?"  
"Digi…mon…?" The nearest creature to me groaned. I guess that as I saw they resembled Hangyomon, those Digimon that worked for MetalSeadramon when we were trying to escape from him with Whamon. "We do not know who we are or how long we have been here…"  
"No…"  
"All we know is we used to serve our god, who resides in the depths…"  
"God…?" I'm assuming we don't worship the same one. "But… but why are you…?"

"One day, this stole our power." The creature held out its arm and revealed that an Evil Spiral was latched onto him. "We were ordered to worship a god that was not our god…"  
"Digimon Kaiser…" He reached out even to this place?  
"So you did know something about this. We have been watching you… No matter where you were… We believed that you, the chosen one, could remove these for us."  
"That's why you called me?" It tried to reach out and I walked up to it. Unlike with MetalGreymon, these creatures were clearly resisting the power of the Evil Spiral but were greatly weakened by it. I then tried to grab the spiral.  
"I don't have that power…" I quickly shook my head. _"Why am I telling myself I can't do it? Maybe I can!"_ My hands began to glow as the power of my Crest began to emerge. Surely the power of light could be able to free these creatures from the Kaiser's will. Of course, this was probably the only time I might be able to do this as other Digimon wouldn't stay still to let me attempt to remove it.

However, before I could be able to remove the Spiral, the whole tunnel began to shake and slowly was starting to collapse!  
"Everyone! Get out of there, quick!" I yelled and we all turned to escape. I was the last one out of the tunnel before it collapsed completely. "What's going on…?" I wondered as I coughed due to all the dust and smoke. I then looked up as I heard a roar and saw a dark colored Airdramon sailing through the sky.  
"That is the messenger of the new god trying to rule us." The creature informed.  
"The Digimon Kaiser!" The Airdramon came back around towards us and unleashed its attack that end up incinerating three of the creatures while the others scattered! "How could he… Something so horrible…!" This was a new precedent for him. Before, all the Kaiser had been doing was enslaving Digimon but he never destroyed them… has he now gone to this length in order to take over the Digital World? Or is he just planning to burn it all as Koushiro feared? "What can I do now…" I said to myself as a few more of the creatures were destroyed in the black flames. "Help me… Onii-chan… Ross-chan… Tailmon… Takeru-kun!"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Hikari-chan!" I yelled across the bay.  
"Calling her from here…" Tailmon said. She was right, though; simply calling for her wasn't going to work. Patamon flew up next to me and joined in.  
"Hikari-chan!" "Hikari!"  
"Feelings…" Now Tailmon joined in.  
"Hikari!" "Hikari-chan!" I suddenly stopped as I saw not too far ahead of us this purplish light like some sort of portal but in the center was Hikari who looked like she was trying to reach out for us!  
"Hikari-chan…?" All logic was just thrown out in my head as I jumped forward and tried to reach the portal. If there was a snowball's chance in Hell of rescuing her, I was gonna take it!  
"Takeru!" Patamon followed me.  
"Feelings… connect the worlds!" realized Tailmon and she jumped as well.

There was a bright light but it then quickly died and the three of us landed face first into the ground.  
"This… isn't the normal Digital World…" Tailmon looked around. We all then looked down to see an Airdramon attacking a beach, and right there down there was Hikari who noticed us and ran towards us on the cliff.  
"Takeru-kun! Tailmon!" She called out.  
"Hikari-chan!" I yelled.  
"You came to help me!"  
"That's right!" I looked back towards the Airdramon that was trying to dive on Hikari. "Let's go, Patamon!"  
"Yeah!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"

I climbed onto his back and we took off to distract that Airdramon. He nearly took a large bite out of us but we just avoided it. He turned around and fired some more shots at us which we also dodge but I could feel the heat from those. However, one of those shots landed nearby the area Hikari and those Hangyomon were at.  
"Damn it!" I cursed. "Pegasmon!"  
"Needle Rain!" His shots threw off the Airdramon and we flew past each other once more.  
"Hikari! I need to Armor-Evolve, too!" Tailmon ran up to her.  
"M-my D-3 is…" She hesitated to say that she didn't have it.  
"Is right here." Tailmon handed it to her.  
"Thanks, Tailmon. Digimental Up!"  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"

That Airdramon seemed hell-bent on getting us and was hard on our tail.  
"Pegasmon! Do something, he's hot on us!"  
"I'm trying, Takeru, but I can't lose him!"  
"Damn it… we won't lose!"  
"Curse of the Queen!" Nefertimon's attack blindsided the Airdramon and destroyed the Evil Ring on him.  
"Alright!" I cheered. However, that Airdramon just went back to pursuing. "I don't understand! We destroyed the ring!"  
"It may be that Airdramon was already twisted and evil before the Kaiser got him!" Nefertimon guessed.  
"Then there's only one Digimon who can deal with him… where's that Dark Tower!?"  
"Pegasmon, I'll distract the Airdramon, you destroy that lighthouse! The Dark Tower must be there!"  
"Understood!" Pegasmon swooped down as Nefertimon drew off the Airdramon.  
"Take it out, Pegasmon!" I ordered.  
"Silver Blaze!" He struck the lighthouse which blasted apart and revealed a Dark Tower that fell over.

"Good work! Now drop me off on the beach, and then deal with that Airdramon!" I told him. Pegasmon nodded and place me on the beach before devolving back into Patamon.  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"  
"Don't hold back, Angemon! It's either him or us!" I gave him the word to destroy that Airdramon. It had been a while since we had to do that but he was still trying to kill us which meant there was only one way to stop him. He stood his position as the Airdramon started flying right towards him before he finally attacked.  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" The blast tore right through the Digimon and destroyed him.  
"Good work… we got him." I sighed in relief. Angemon then went back to the beach and launched another one at the Hangyomon which destroyed all the Evil Spirals on them.

Hikari was happy about that until she noticed they were beginning to change. They no longer looked like Hangyomon but rather large humanoid fish/amphibious creatures.  
"Is this… your true form…?" Hikari nervously questioned as one of them suddenly grabbed her! "Wh-what are you doing!?" I looked around for something to try to help her with.  
"The reason we called you… is because you are worthy of being our bride. In order to fight the new god, we must create new offspring."  
"But I helped you!"  
"You shall come back with us."  
"NEVER!" I screamed as I used a long sharp piece of metal from the destroyed lighthouse to cut the arm off the creature that was holding Hikari. It backed off as I got in front of her. Then Angemon delivered another Heaven's Knuckle that landed in front of the monsters which forced them to back up to the water. They soon began walking backwards into ocean  
"Chosen one… we believed you would be glad to be our bride… Very well. We shall return to the depths, to our former god… And… wait for the time." They vanished under the waves.  
"Takeru-kun… I want to go home." I placed my hand on her shoulder.  
"Let's go… that's why we came for you." She then gave me a small smile.

Hikari and I climbed onto Nefertimon and followed Angemon as we flew up towards a bright light in the sky, similar to the one that we used to get here. It must have been the portal.  
"Takeru-kun… what did you mean earlier when you said you cared too much about me?" She asked me as she held on behind me.  
"Well, I… I was just…" I couldn't find the words.  
"I just want you to know… that I care about you too." She then leaned over my shoulder and gave me a kiss on my left cheek. "Thank you for saving me… Takeru." I couldn't help but smile. The girl I liked just kissed me, I only wish the reason for it was a better time than trying to save her from some sort of unspeakable horror. We kept flying until we finally saw the sun again and flew out of the ground. I guess we ended up back in the Digital World.

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. June 3rd, 2002. 1912 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"INNSMOUTH!?" I shouted as Takeru and Hikari finished explaining what had happened to them earlier today.  
"You know it?" Takeru looked confused.  
"Of course I know it! Any of you familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft?"  
"I knew I heard it from somewhere before." Hikari muttered.  
"Innsmouth played a large role in the mythos of Cthulhu."  
"Cthulhu?" Takeru questioned.  
"A giant squid like monster, an Elder God that lives in a city called R'lyeh buried deep under the waves, a city full of unspeakable monstrosities that will drive men mad just by looking at it or its ruler." I explained.  
"Those creatures you encountered sounded like his servants, the Deep Ones, or at least a Digital World equivalent, which means there's a Digital World equivalent to Cthulhu as well." Taichi guessed.  
"Well, they seemed like they were done with me… for the time being at least."  
"That's good to hear. Come on, Hikari, you've had a long day." Taichi led her to her room, leaving me and Takeru alone.

"Takeru-kun… you have me and Taichi's thanks about what you did today." I told him.  
"It was nothing, I was just doing what I felt like I need to do."  
"It was not nothing. You ventured into a world of madness to rescue Hikari when Taichi and I were unaware. You did real good once again." I was referencing back to when he also protected Hikari from Piemon.  
"Thanks, Ross-san. I better get back home, Mom should have dinner ready." He started walking for the door.  
"By the way… she gave you a peck on the cheek, didn't she?" I smirked. Takeru looked back at me with his eyes widened like he was scared of me. "Relax… you've earned it. See you tomorrow." He calmed down, nodded and then walked out again. I sighed to myself. It was good that Takeru was there for her, but that was a disturbing thing we just discovered. For the time being, though, our worries should be more about the Kaiser and not this Dark World.

Still, I get the feeling we're gonna have to deal with that place sooner or later…

* * *

So... that was a chapter. I really would like to write more but... the show move on from there.

Okay, first things first, I have no idea why Tailmon evolved into Angewomon in the original episode or why they destroyed that Airdramon so I just had Angemon fill the role and give good reason why Takeru and Hikari would destroy the Digimon.

The second refers to Dagomon and the Deep Ones... they will not show up again in this story but I won't forget them. There's still more to this story I'm going to write and it all depends on some things. If the Digimon Adventure anniversary movie later this year, or a proposed 4th Series (Still unsure if that's been greenlit yet) deals with Dagomon (and by extension Demon) then it's all well and good. If not, then damn it all, I'll write it myself! But for the time being, Dagomon will not play a role in this story.

Take care everyone, and see you next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	18. Warrior of Purity! Shurimon!

Man, I got one more week before classes start again. This winter vacation went to fast! I want more time to devote to this story!

Shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **Whiteling** for the reviews.

I got more to say at the end, so let's get on with it.

* * *

 **Chapter 17: Warrior of Purity! Shurimon!**

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. June 16th, 2002. 1232 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

"We're not supposed to be able to open the gate to the Digital World without a D-3… Why just Hikari-san?" I muttered to myself as I was pacing the room. It's been almost two weeks since Takeru and Hikari went to that strange world and I've still been trying to knock my head on it. The only good news was that we hadn't had a problem with it since then so maybe we're done with it… for the time being. "Even with Miyako-kun's and myself expansion of the D-Terminal's functions, I didn't think there would be such a change. Maybe it had nothing with what we did to the D-Terminals, maybe Hikari-san must have something special… and I'm not referring to the power of her Crest." At least we're back to focusing on our main problem: driving out the Digimon Kaiser.

The computer chimed which indicated that I had gotten an e-mail message.  
"'It doesn't seem like there are any Digimentals around here. – Inoue'" I read the message out loud. The others were in the Digital World right now and had recently detected the presence of a Digimental on their D-3s but lost the signal, so they were trying to look for it, though it now sounds like they haven't had much luck. "'I see… will you be back soon? - Izumi'" I read my own message aloud before I sent it. After a few moments, I got a reply back from Miyako. "'We'll look around some more.'" I quickly checked the map of where they were and it looked like they wouldn't need to worry about trouble. "'Okay, that area doesn't have a Dark Tower.'" I sent another message back.

A minute later, I got a strange signal on the computer; it was something I never saw before.  
"A gate opened in America… in New York no less… I wonder if he noticed." I looked to the clock and tried to do the time differential in my head. "At this time… it's still… shoot, it's almost midnight there." I went into thought about my next move. "What should I do? Eh, you know what; I'd think he'd like it. Although, I better send a message to Ross-san and Mimi-san to meet with him first. Best to get the few people in our group who speaks English to welcome him or he'll end up getting lost and we do not need that happening." I soon typed my message to get Mimi and Ross to come over here and soon meet up with our guest.

 _Digital World. June 16th, 2002. 1251 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

It's almost been three hours now since we first detected that Digimental and we've had no such luck since then. It feels like a wild chase we've been on. The good news is that we haven't had any trouble from the Kaiser so that made the searching a little more easier; the problem now was that we were getting tired and hungry.  
"I'm so hungry… any more chocolate?" V-mon asked as he fell on his backside while his stomach growled.  
"Yeah, I'm hungry too." Daisuke chimed in.  
"Well, it is lunch time right now." Ken pointed out.  
"We should have brought more snacks." I said.  
"No more Chu-Chu Jelly…" Armadimon complained. Wow, a Digimon that doesn't want to eat something… that's a first, at least to me.  
"We can't fight on an empty stomach." Hawkmon reminded.  
"Assuming one comes." Wormmon added.

Tailmon looked at Hikari with her arms raised in a shrug and a weird look on her face that made Hikari laugh.  
"So, should we go back?" suggested Hikari.  
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, so let's do that." Daisuke agreed with her.  
"We have no choice…" Iori conceded.  
"Guys!" Takeru got our attention. "There's a restaurant by the lake!"  
"A restaurant!?" V-mon jumped onto his feet.  
"Great, dagyaa!" Armadimon cheered.  
"Now we can fight again!" Hawkmon cried.

"That was good!" Both V-mon and Daisuke shouted an hour later after we ate lunch at the restaurant.  
"I didn't think we could eat this will in the Digital World!" I admitted.  
"Same here." Iori nodded across from me.  
"It's definitely a welcomed change of pace from what we usually do in the Digital World." Ken said.  
"Takeru, what's wrong?" Patamon asked.  
"It's been bugging me, if feels like I've been here before…" Takeru looked around.  
"Here? I don't remember…" Hikari informed.  
"Excuse me! Check, please!" I called for the waiter.  
"Sure! Thank you very much." A large egg Digimon with reptile legs walked out from the kitchen.

The others started to head out for the door while I followed the egg to his cash register to pay for the meal.  
"So, how much?" I asked him.  
"For everyone, it will be eighty-seven dollars." Wait, what? "Like I said, eighty-seven dollars." He thought I didn't hear him.  
"Um, how much is that in yen?"  
"Eh?"  
"So, in yen…"  
"We only accept dollars here." He was beginning to sound upset.  
"Miyako-san, what's wrong?" Takeru questioned.  
"It's eighty-seven dollars…"  
"Wait, as in American currency?" Ken wanted clarification.  
"But we don't have any dollars…" Hikari admitted.  
"Which means…" I muttered as we turned to the egg.  
"You're leaving without paying!"

"No, we have money! Look!" I showed him my wallet.  
"We take dollars, anything else is just paper!"  
"Does it matter? Yen, dollars, it's all the same!"  
"How are they the same? If you don't have dollars, then you've eaten without paying!"  
 _"This is pissing me off!"_ I thought to myself, I was about ready to crack this guy's shell open.  
"You want to work it off?"  
"Huh? Hey, I've heard this story somewhere before…" Takeru whispered.  
"We don't mind working… but if we do that, we won't make it home." Iori told the egg.  
"That's not my problem!" He jumped onto the counter. "Anyways, if you don't pay, you better return it by working…"

"I'll pay." We heard a male voice behind us say in some pretty broken Japanese. We turned around and found ourselves at a very handsome boy. He was pale skinned, had blond wavy hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a light green shirt and some blue jeans. The last thing about him was that he looked about a year older than me.  
"Um… who are you?" Hikari asked.  
"Hello! How's everyone doing?" Mimi popped up from behind him.  
"Mimi-san!" We all cried.  
"What am I? Nothing?" Ross also walked in with Guilmon, Palmon and a green amphibious Digimon with a large orange fin on its head.  
"Hi, Ross-san." Ken said.  
"Thanks." Ross sounded disappointed.

"Mimi-san? What are you doing here? And who is this?" Iori asked.  
"A gate connecting America to the Digital World opened, so Koushiro-kun sent me and Ross-san to pick up our friend here." Mimi explained, at the same time, Ross was also speaking, but in a lower tone and in another language; English, I'm guessing. After all, if this guy is from America, then he probably doesn't speak Japanese so I guess Ross and Mimi are translating for him.  
"Everyone, we'd like you to meet our friend from New York, Michael." Ross introduced.  
"And this is my friend Betamon." Palmon also introduced the small Digimon with her and Guilmon.  
"I'm Betamon. Nice to meet you." He bowed.  
"Uh, Mimi-oneesama, why is Michael-san in the Digital World?" I wondered.  
"He's a Chosen Child, like us." Mimi answered. Our eyes widened as he held up a Digivice, the same one the others had before theirs morphed into D-3s.  
"A Chosen Child?" We all exclaimed.  
"It's like Taichi-san and the others' old Digivices." Daisuke noticed.

 _P.O.V. – Mimi Tachikawa_

We sat back down in the restaurant area and the others began asking questions about Michael and how he became a Chosen Child. He explained he became one just last year.  
"Last year?" questioned Hikari.  
"Yeah, he became one in 2001." I said. "Michael says he always admired us, it's really flattering!"  
"At least through the e-mails he and Koushiro send to each other." Ross clarified.  
"So there are Chosen Children like us in America too…" Daisuke muttered.  
"Which means there may be more in other countries." Iori guessed.  
"Michael is so cool…" Miyako looked star struck. We all quickly looked at her.  
"Miyako-san? Why is your face red?" Ken asked. Miyako's eyes widen and she covered up her face in embarrassment.  
"{In 1999, I saw a Digimon in New York. It was an Adult-Level Digimon called Gorimon.}" Michael told us.  
"That was when Vamdemon invaded Tokyo, right?" Takeru recalled.  
"{And when the Digital World was in the sky… August 3rd, 1999. I think witnessing that event was the reason why I became a Chosen Child.}"

"Reason…" It seemed like Iori was remembering something. "Speaking of reason, in 1999… At that time, I was on a plane. It had to make an emergency landing on the water." Wait, he was on that plane that Kuwagamon took down?  
"At that time, I was capture by Vamdemon at Big Sight." Daisuke recalled. "Now I know why those Bakemon looked so familiar last month… they were the ones herding us to the convention center."  
"Come to think of it… I actually remember seeing the Digimon twice with my brother. The first time, I saw this large furry walrus fighting a large squid on the bay, and then on the day of the fog, I saw two kids climb onto that same walrus and head into Odaiba." Ken informed.  
"That was me and Jou-san you saw that day, Ken-kun." Takeru told him.  
"Ah, now I got that answer. I'm guessing that walrus is Gomamon's Adult-Level?" Takeru nodded.  
"I wasn't directly involved in what happened in the summer of 1999, but I sent e-mails during the fight with Diablomon in the spring of 2000." Miyako said.  
"And with Takeru-kun, Mimi-kun, Hikari and I, it was seeing Greymon and Parrotmon clash at Hikarigaoka in '95." Ross concluded.  
"Everyone was involved in some way." I slowly nodded my head.  
"Fate is so strange." Palmon admitted.  
"Hmph, wish it was more spelled out for us." Guilmon huffed.

"Um… I'm sorry to bother you while you reminisce, but…" The egg Digimon walked up.  
"{Oh, sorry! I'll pay now!}" Michael apologized.  
"Of course!" Takeru stood up from his seat. "It was Digitamamon… During our last adventures when we all got split up, Onii-chan and Jou-san were forced to work here, and Vamdemon's agent, Digitamamon, attacked them!"  
"So you worked for an evil Digimon!?" Miyako questioned him.  
"No, no, long ago, I may have been wild… okay… listen, PicoDevimon was paying a lot of cash in order to stop you Chosen Children, and I knew he worked for Vamdemon, who at the time I knew was a Digimon not to cross, so that's why I did what I did. Besides, ever since the Dark Masters were defeated, I've been making an honest living." Digitamamon explained.  
"So you had a change of heart and you're doing your best." Hikari figured out.  
"Good, keep up the good work!" I praised.  
"Sure! It's so encouraging for you young ladies to say that." Hard outer shell, but he's really soft underneath.

"What are the Dark Masters? I don't know anything about that…" Miyako asked.  
"Very powerful villains we had to fight towards the end of our last adventure. Wait, we haven't told you guys about that yet? Takeru-kun, Hikari, what have you been doing?" Ross questioned.  
"We haven't got to that part yet." Takeru explained.  
"I don't want to think about those days anymore." Digitamamon sounded discouraged. Well, I think he's truly changed his tune and he wants to be a good Digimon.  
 _"_ _Change of heart, huh? After he accused us of not paying, who'd believe that? He's just a miser…"_ Miyako thought. _"And he looks weird and you can't tell what he's thinking since you can't see his face…"  
_ "But it seems not everyone understands me." Digitamamon's eyes looked upset.  
"It's not like that!" I held my hands up in defense. "We all understand you. Right, Miyako-chan?" I turned to her.  
"Eh? Y-yeah…"

"That's right. Even if people don't understand you, it's fine as long as you believe in yourself." Takeru gave some words of wisdom right there.  
"Even if people don't understand me, if I believe in myself… Of course, you are very right!" Sounds like Digitamamon took those words to heart. "I'll do my best. Thank you, everyone!"  
"{Mimi, your trust in people gives them courage. I want to learn that!}" Michael said.  
"{Sure, learn on!}" I offered before we both laughed."  
"They're good friends, huh?" Daisuke observed.  
"Actually, it's the first time we've met him in person, yet they're acting like they've known each other for years." Ross told the others before he mumbled something under his breath that I couldn't understand.  
 _"_ _Michael is all into Mimi-san too… this isn't fun…"_ Miyako thought to herself.

Our laughter was interrupted as the whole restaurant began to rock.  
"It's coming from the lake!" Daisuke determined and we all ran outside. "There!" He pointed across the lake. Coming out of the trees was a large white gorilla Digimon with a large cannon on its left arm.  
"{It's Gorimon!}" Michael shouted.  
"Watch your backs, everyone! Gorimon is not a foe you want to take lightly! His Power Attack will quite literally blow you away!" warned Guilmon.  
"Look! On his right arm! An Evil Spiral!" Hikari pointed.  
"But, aren't the Evil Spirals for Perfect-Level Digimon?" Daisuke questioned.  
"Maybe the Kaiser is beginning to phase out the Evil Ring. We know it can completely control a Perfect-Level, maybe they can boost the power of an Adult-Level; might be the reason why it's on Gorimon." theorized Ken.  
"If they're being used on Adult Digimon as well, there must be many of them." Iori worried. That's not good for our fight against him.

Gorimon aimed across the lake and began charging his arm cannon. We could see it thanks to those tubes connecting to his cannon beginning to pump. He fired a large shot at us.  
"Look out!" Daisuke shouted. However, before the shot could reach us, Digitamamon charged out in front of us and took the shot at full force. He may have been fine as he completely shielded himself in his egg but it sent him flying through the air, even taking a chunk of his roof off, to the point we couldn't see him anymore.  
 _"_ _Did he just protect us? Digitamamon?"_ Miyako looked surprised by what had just happened.  
"Grr…" Daisuke growled as Gorimon pounded his chest like the gorilla he was.  
"Palmon, let's get that Spiral off of him! Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"Palmon, Armor-Evolve! Roots of Purity, KONTEIMON!"

Konteimon jumped forward into the air and the Shuriken on her head began to spin like a helicopter as she soared down towards Gorimon. The gorilla charged another shot at her but she stopped spinning to dive on him, narrowly avoiding the shot.  
"Shuriken Toss!" The shuriken flew out and struck Gorimon in the chest but he just shook it off as Konteimon landed. He recovered faster than she though and he grabbed her before he threw her into the woods.  
"Konteimon!" I cried out. I was not worried for long as she used her roots to latch to the trunk of a tree and use centrifugal force to go around the tree and fly back towards Gorimon who she struck in the face.  
"{Mimi! Get Gorimon into the water!}" ordered Michael.  
"Okay! Konteimon, throw him into the lake!" I yelled.  
"Right! Strike Root!" Roots shot out of the ground and entangled Gorimon before they pulled him into the water.

"{Thanks! Now leave the rest to us! Betamon!}" Michael called up his Digimon.  
"{Ready to go, Michael!}" Betamon replied in English. Guess he knows both languages. The small Digimon hopped into the water. "Betamon, evolve! SEADRAMON!" His appearance made me flinch for a second there as some bad memories flashed in my mind.  
"{Something wrong, Mimi?}" Michael asked.  
"{Sorry, Michael, we've just had some bad experiences with the Seadramon line in our adventures. A wild Seadramon attacked us our first night in the Digital World, a MegaSeadramon tried to kill Jou and Takeru on the Rainbow Bridge when Vamdemon invaded, and MetalSeadramon was one of the Dark Masters.}" explained Ross. At the same time, Seadramon popped back out of the water with his body wrapped around Gorimon.  
"{That's what we were wanting! Gorimon has the disadvantage underwater!}" After a few moments, there was a large explosion from underwater as Gorimon shot up in the air with a large chunk of ice blocking his cannon.  
"Now, Konteimon!" I called out.  
"Shuriken Toss!" Another shuriken was tossed and this one struck the Evil Spiral directly causing it to shatter before Gorimon was caught by Seadramon in the lake.  
"Alright!" We all cheered.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Sorry we were so rough, but we had no choice." Mimi apologized to the now free Gorimon. "You should go back to where you belong." Gorimon growled in agreement and began walking back to where ever his home was.  
"Without the Evil Spiral, he's not a bad Digimon anymore." Palmon said.  
"Of course, Digimon aren't bad from the start."  
"You sure, Mimi-kun? I'd argue with you on a few of them like Devimon." Ross spoke up.  
"Maybe… but all these Digimon we've encountered lately were only bad all because of the Evil Spiral."  
"{Koushiro explained this all to me during our e-mails… this all because of the Digimon Kaiser, right?}" We all nodded to Michael. "{A kid like us is trying to take over the Digital World, that's just wrong and messed up!}"  
"He doesn't know who he really is." Ross whispered to Ken in Japanese to keep Michael from hearing that.  
"Messed up or not, it's the truth." Daisuke told Michael.  
"Michael is so cool…" I said under my breath.  
"You said something?" Daisuke looked at me.  
"Nothing…"

I suddenly had a realization about something now that all the fighting was over.  
"Wait a second, where's Digitamamon?"  
"Right, he protected us…" Mimi recalled. "I'm sure he's hurt somewhere!"  
"We'll look for him from above, then." Takeru offered, with Hikari nodding with him. Patamon and Tailmon nodded at each other and soon Pegasmon and Nefertimon were in the skies trying to find Digitamamon.  
"Let's go look for him too!" Mimi said.  
"No need; I think we found him." Ken pointed over to a small hill where a large egg was rolling down it.  
"Digitamamon! You're safe!"  
"Yeah, I am!" He shouted from underneath his shell.  
"I'm so glad!"  
 _"_ _I should thank him for saving us…"_ I thought to myself.  
"I flew far away and finally managed to come back." His shell opened which revealed his eyes, but they looked somewhat different.  
"Thanks about earlier! You saved us!" Mimi ran up to him.  
"Mimi-san, wait!" I called out to her. She stopped and turned to me. "Something's different from before!"

Digitamamon's legs now came out of his shell and he took a threatening step forward.  
"This time, I'll send you all far away!"  
"I knew it…" I said.  
"Mimi-kun!" "{Mimi!}" Ross and Michael yelled out for her.  
"Miyako-san!" Hawkmon poked my leg, looking ready to fight. I nodded.  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!"  
"Take this!" Digitamamon charged forward at Mimi but Holsmon got in the way and took the hard hit which knocked him to the ground.  
"Holsmon!" I cried out.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon yelled out. The others all followed suit.  
"Digimental Up!" Daisuke, Ken and Iori shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" "Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!" "Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"  
"Guilmon, let's do it old school!" Ross stepped forward.  
"Guilmon, evolve! GROWMON!"

Digitamamon jumped back away from Holsmon as the four Digimon got in between them.  
"Knuckle Fire!" "Exhaust Flame!" "Teter Spin!" Digitamamon closed up his shell as both fire attacks hit him and right after they dissipated, Tetermon violently spun into the shell before bouncing off; leaving no marks of damage whatsoever.  
"What?" "Huh?" "Damn it…" The three of them said.  
"How about this, dagyaa?" Digmon walked up and begun to try to drill through the eggshell. "Not a scratch…"  
"Alright, everyone, attack all at once." Fladramon suggested.  
"Wait!" Mimi ran right in front of Digitamamon! "Guys, wait a second before you attack Digitamamon!"  
"Why!?"  
"Digitamamon, go back to your true self. You're being controlled by something evil right now. That must be it!" Wait, does he have an Evil Spiral or something?  
"I'm not being controlled by anything, this is my true self." Digitamamon opened his eye portion of his shell.  
"No, it's not!"  
"It is!"

"Mimi-san, what are you trying to do?" I questioned as the rest of us ran up to her.  
"If we talk to him, I'm sure he'll understand."  
"That's useless!"  
"I agree. He's clearly not in the mood of talking!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Everyone, be quiet!" She told us.  
 _"_ _Why? For a Digimon that's not even our ally… it's impossible…"_ I thought to myself. Is Mimi just really that nice?  
"You said it before…" Mimi turned back to Digitamamon. "Even if no one understands us, it's fine as long as we believe in ourselves…"  
"That was…" Digitamamon sounded remorseful. "I can't believe you're so naïve to believe that! I just said it to let your guard down!" See? I knew it.  
"No, that's a lie." Huh? "Even if nobody believes you, I will."  
 _"_ _Mimi-san… why are you trying so hard?"_ I wondered.  
"You have to be kidding me. Stop saying those disgusting things!"  
"No, I won't stop. I'll never stop! Not even if you beg!"  
"That's enough!" He charged and struck her in the chest!

"Mimi-chan!" Ross cried as she hit the ground.  
"Mimi!" Palmon ran up to her followed by me and Ross.  
"Mimi-san!" I shouted.  
"I believe in you." Mimi softly said as Ross gently propped her head up, much to mine and even Digitamamon's surprise. "So go back to your true self." Unbelievable, even after what he just did, Mimi was still trying to defend him.  
"Your true self…?" I repeated. "Your true self…" Can those same words relate to me as well? Should I also be true about myself?  
"Sh-shut up…" Digitamamon yelled. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I yelled back.  
"Huh?"  
"Digitamamon, what are you thinking!?" I began to let him have it. "Attacking Mimi-san… Mimi-san, who unlike me, always thought you were a good guy! Let me just say this now: I hate you, I can't stand you! I can't tell what you're thinking!" I marched right up to him. "But when you saved us from Gorimon earlier, I thought that maybe you were a good guy! Really! And now what? You betrayed the people who believed in you!"  
"What are you talking about? You didn't trust me!"  
"Yeah, I didn't! Because I judge people on how they look! Of course! Cooler must be better! Yeah, I like cool guys. That's why I like cool guys like Michael-san or Ken-kun! I can't help it, okay!? Whatever people say, this is the real me!" As soon as I finished, the ground beneath my feet began to glow, and it begun to rise right in front of me until it was revealed to be a Digimental; the same one Mimi had.

"What's going on?" I questioned once more.  
"A Digimental…" Iori said.  
"Is that… the Crest of Purity?" Mimi muttered.  
"Why?" Daisuke wondered.  
"Maybe it responded to the innocent cry of Miyako-san's heart." Ken guessed.  
"My… second one?" I said mostly to myself.  
"Miyako-san!" Holsmon cried. I nodded as he devolved back to Hawkmon.  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Bursting Purity, SHURIMON!"

Shurimon was quite the imposing Digimon. He was dressed like a ninja in a white garb, with large leaves on his shoulders, the Crest of Purity on his headband, three pointed shuriken on his hands and feet that were connected to springs and a large four pointed on his back.  
"Autumn Wind!" He threw forward his two shuriken arms but Digitamamon closed up his shell and they bounced off.  
"That attack won't have an effect on me. Nightmare Syndrome!" This black blob with a face shot out towards us.  
"Guys, I'm counting on you!" He referred to the other Digimon.  
"Leave it to us!" They all said as they jumped in front of us humans. That blob was caught in their arms but it got really close to me and looked like it was trying to bit my head off!  
"Hm? I see… Kusanagi!" Shurimon grabbed his large shuriken and tossed it which impaled right through Digitamamon's open shell. "I won't let you run!"

"Leave it to us!" Pegasmon and Nefertimon shouted as Takeru and Hikari returned to us. "Sanctuary Bind!" They began wrapping around Digitamamon to cut off his escape and pulled him up into the air.  
"Is that… Hawkmon?" Hikari questioned.  
"A new Armor Evolution?" Takeru wondered.  
"The Evil Spiral is inside the shell!" Shurimon informed. Looks like Mimi was right about him being influenced. "Autumn Wind!" He threw his arm once more and it went into Digitamamon's shell before it came back out. What followed it was Digitamamon hacking up black chunks of the now shattered Evil Spiral.  
"He threw up the Evil Spiral!" Daisuke observed.  
"You did it, Shurimon!" I cheered.

We all gathered around Digitamamon and after a few minutes, he begun to come back to.  
"I-I…"  
"Digitamamon, are you alright?" Mimi asked.  
"You saved me?"  
"Yes, Miyako-chan did."  
"Eh? M-me?" I pointed to myself.  
"Miyako-san, thank you." Digitamamon walked up.  
"N-no, you're making me blush… But I'm sorry for saying that I hated you…"  
"It's fine, don't worry about it."  
"I'll be more honest from now on."  
"It's alright; you're more than honest enough."  
"Yeah, like how Mimi is honest about her feelings for Ken!" Daisuke teased. Both me and Ken went really red faced when said that. I'm gonna hurt him for that!

"Mimi-oneesama, this is all thanks to your Crest of Purity!" I told her once I regained my composure. "I'll take good care of it!"  
"Okay, good luck!" She told me as a yellow swirl Digimon with a small purple mouse on its head hopped over to her and tapped her on the shoulder.  
"Hey, Mimi?" The swirl asked. She turned her head to it.  
"How 'bout that date now?" The mouse asked. Her eyes actually began to have tears formed in it.  
"C-Chuumon? Oh!" She looked like she was about to hug them before quickly backing off. "Oh, sorry, I'm guessing you guys haven't taken a bath…"  
"Eh…" The both nervously said, meaning that they did.  
"Oh, Chuumon, it's so nice to see both you and Sukamon alive and well again. I never had the chance to thank you about Piemon."  
"It was worth it completely. The Digital World was saved thanks to you guys." The mouse, Chuumon, said.  
"So, Mimi, you want to go out with us?" The swirl, Sukamon, asked once more.  
"Eh…" Mimi was quickly trying to think of an answer, as I think she was happy to see them, but didn't want to go out on a date with them.  
"Sorry, fellas. But she's already going out with me." Ross walked over and got her back on her feet.  
"Aw…" Both Digimon sounded disappointed.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We said our goodbyes to Digitamamon, Sukamon and Chuumon as we led Michael back to the gate.  
"Hey, sorry for springing that whole date thing on you, Mimi-kun." I apologized.  
"It's alright, I felt really great seeing them again, but I really didn't want to go out with them."  
"But I was actually being serious."  
"Huh?"  
"I've been trying to say this for a while now, but haven't found the courage to say it until now, but… would you be willing to go out on a date with me?" There, finally freaking said it! She gave me a kind smile… please say yes, please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.  
"I'd be happy to go out with you." She said. Thank you, Jesus!

"You know, I'm sure there'll be a time when we'll fight together again." Daisuke shook Michael's hand.  
"{Yeah. Until that time, we'll try to become stronger.}"  
"You better hurry; I think your gate will close soon. Besides, isn't it already past midnight in New York?" Ken asked.  
"{Yeah, Dad is real understanding when it comes to the Digimon but I don't think he appreciate the fact I'm out this late to go to the Digital World on a school night.}"  
"{Well nice to know your dad is a cool guy in private.}" I said.  
"{Oh, he's isn't that special, after all, your dad is a war hero.}"  
"{Your dad is Marty McFly!}" I yelled.  
"Eh?" Some of the others sounded confused. Michael chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head.  
"{Yeah… my dad is actor Michael J. Fox, from the **_Back to the Future_** films.}"  
"What!?" A few of them shouted.  
"Oh! Now I really want to talk to Michael-san more!" Miyako moaned. Michael smiled, whispered with Mimi for a moment before walking up to Miyako and holding out his hand.  
"See you again, Miyako-kun." They shook hands before Michael and Betamon headed back to New York, happy that he gave us a hand.

All in a day's work for a Chosen Child, no matter what country they're from…

* * *

So first things first... Ross finally asked out Mimi.

Next, okay, after watching the dubbed episode, I can now defend a bit better Mimi's actions to Sukamon and Chuumon. They say 'Hey, girl' which in my mind means that it may not be the same ones, those two might still be on File Island. However, I want to the two that met her to make an appearance much like how I want to some old allies to make so appearances later on and I'm not just talking about Whamon.

Finally... yeah, Michael is Michael J. Fox's son. Actually, his eldest son Sam (who looks very much like his father) fits pretty perfectly. Michael is apparently in the 7th Grade which means he was either born in 1989 or 1990 so that fits. He is from New York where the Fox's lived at the time (and still do apparently). Finally, his dad's name is Michael J. Barton... either the writers did that on purpose or that's just a huge coincidence. I know that they included that Harrison Ford connection with that _**Last Crusade**_ -ish poster and known how to fly a plane, but still.

Anyways, I'll see you all for the next one where we're gonna get a good old fashioned ninja fight! *Starts watching **_Miami Connection_** *

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	19. A Matter of Honor! Igamon!

Hello, last Monday before classes start again and then the story will be updated a little slower, I wish it was the summer vacation already.

Shoutout to a bunch of people with their reviews: **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , **Sonic245** , **and Whiteling**.  
Oh, and two more reviewers, yes, **Vietnam123** , in a way, this is a remake of 02.  
And to **God of the Challenge** , as much as I would like it, no 99 references. I have to keep this dated to 2002.

Anyways, let's get on with it.

* * *

 **Chapter 18: A Matter of Honor! Igamon!**

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. June 29th, 2002. 2007 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

 _"_ _But when the night is falling, you cannot find the light! You feel your dreams are dying; hold tight! You got the music in you! Don't let go, you've got the music in you! One dance left, this world is gonna pull through! Don't give up; you've got a reason to live! Can't forget; we only get what we give!"_ Man, that song always cheers me up. I really needed to hear it after today; it was brutal. The war was slowly beginning to take its toll. The good news was that we weren't losing it, but we weren't winning it either. It was a back and forth fight; we'd liberate an area, the Kaiser would seize another one.

Today, we came across a pretty hard nut to crack. I think we ran into a defensive line the Kaiser has created. It's not your typical defensive line with pillboxes, bunkers, trenches, barbed wire and the like but rather the area we encountered actually had not one or two but three Dark Towers in the area and it was guarded by some pretty tough Digimon. This wasn't just the same in one area, a good amount of us Old Breed had the free time to assist and we ran into this same problem in three adjacent areas, hence why I believed it to be a defensive line. We broke through all of them which gave us two bits of good news. The first was that we had punched a hole right through the 'Kaiser Line' as we nicknamed it and that kind of defense meant that perhaps we're closer to where the Kaiser's lair is. If we can just find it, then all we need is one last push to cut the head off the snake. I even have a fitting name for it, Operation: Grand Slam. The only question is… how much further can we go with this before we reach our limit?

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At the same time, a large city that resembled Feudal Japan was having an uninvited guest flying over it. The Kaiser looked smugly at city while on the back of his personal Devidramon.  
"Osam- Digimon Kaiser-sama?" Monodramon was quick to remember that Osamu wished to be called the Kaiser from now on. "You're taking over this area too?" All the Kaiser did to answer was chuckle. The area was a good place to gather a large amount of new slaves but the Kaiser for the past few weeks had his mind on some other things. He wasn't seizing as much territory now because he was more focused on his grand project: one that would crush the Chosen Children once and for all.

For the Chosen Children, the looming threat was far to the back of their minds, at least in the minds of most of the New Breed. At Daisuke's apartment, he and Chibimon were taking a bubble bath but Chibimon was too energetic to be still.  
"Hey, stay still! I can't wash you!" Daisuke picked him up.  
"But it tickles!"  
"Hey, keep it down or they'll hear us!" Chibimon turned the tables as he begun tickling Daisuke. Meanwhile, Jun was in the kitchen enjoying a drink when she heard the faint sound of Daisuke laughing, though it was hard to tell as her parents were laughing loudly too at the show they were watching.  
"He's laughing alone in the bathroom? I hope he's alright." She muttered to herself. He may be a pain in the neck to her, but Jun still did care for her brother, even if he didn't feel the same.

"Now, on other news…" The news reporter said on Miyako's TV. "Genius boy Ichijouji Osamu, who suddenly disappeared two months ago, has not yet been found. The police, believing he's in trouble, continue their search…" The report was suddenly cut as it now showed two samurai fighting each other, which made Poromon red in the face.  
"Hey, I was watching!" Miyako shouted at her dad who had the remote.  
"Isn't it time for bed? Go to sleep." He said. She got up while her brother, Mantarou, who was blow drying his hair, accidently knocked Poromon back.  
"Don't leave your stuff in the way!"  
"Okay…" She said as she picked him up and took him to her room before she got out her D-Terminal and typed a message to the others.  
"'Let's go to the Digital World tomorrow – Miyako'" Ken read aloud. He then typed in a new message. "Alright, but we'll have to leave a little later in the morning. My parents still want to give me a birthday party tomorrow, but it's gonna be a lot more of a somber one because of, you know." He finished typing up the message before sending it and heading to sleep.

"Emergency, ribbit! Emergency, ribbit! Emergency, ribbit!" A Gekomon shouted as he was running through the streets of the Feudal Japanese city in the Digital World at first light. He ran into the castle that overlooked the city. "Lord! Lord!" He ran into a large room that served as the main chambers of the lord of the castle and city, TonosamaGekomon. This was the same one that the Chosen Children had dealt with in the previous adventures, though being reborn; his attitude had mellowed out considerably. "This is terrible, ribbit! Hey, wake up, ribbit!" TonosamaGekomon woke up and turned to the screaming Gekomon. "A Dark Tower has appeared ribbit!"  
"WHAT, RIBBIT!?" TonosamaGekomon jumped out of bed faster than he had before. He pulled on a cord that lifted his platform to the roof of the castle, where he could get a better look of the area. "Ahh!" He screamed.  
"It's like the one I saw at the Murimuri Forest, ribbit!" The Gekomon informed.  
"Ribbit! So the Digimon Kaiser has finally come this far! Ribbit…!" The large Digimon panicked. For good reason too as many of the Digimon living in the city would soon fall victim to the rain of Evil Rings above them.

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. June 30th, 2002. 1041 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"I'm worried about the Digimon Kaiser's movements." Takeru admitted.  
"Since he made Agumon Dark-Evolve, he hasn't faced us." Hikari reminded.  
"Right… But he's still taking over new areas…" Miyako sat at the computer. "Albeit, not as much as he probably could."  
"I guess he's too busy to play with us." I said.  
"He may be planning something." Iori express slight worry.  
"Then, we gotta make the first move!"  
"Yeah, we have to free as many areas as we can from his control!" informed Takeru.  
"While trying to find out where his headquarters is." Ken told us as he walked in.  
"Hey, happy birthday." I told him.  
"Thanks… but I'm not really in the mood if that's okay." We all understood. Probably was the same at his place. They're all more concerned about Osamu. We all turned our attention back to the computer and held up our D-3s.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" Miyako shouted.

When we arrived to the Digital World, a lot of us were taken aback by a quite familiar sight.  
"Where are we, dagyaa?" Armadimon asked.  
"It's a strange place…" Patamon muttered.  
"It's like that place we saw on TV last night." Hawkmon observed.  
"The Kyoto Uzumasa Studio?" wondered Hikari. They must have been watching the same thing last night.  
"Isn't it like an old Edo town?" Miyako questioned.  
"No, without a doubt, this is the Digital World. Look." Iori pointed ahead and we soon saw a Dark Tower.  
"You're right, Iori-kun. The Kaiser has definitely taken this area." said Ken. I soon noticed red eyes all around us.  
"Daisuke-kun." Takeru got back-to-back with me.  
"Yeah… looks like we're not alone.

After a few tense moments, the rush came. Mushroom and flower Digimon all under the Kaiser's control soon began to blitz and surround us.  
"Floramon and Mushmon." Wormmon alerted. "They may be Child-Level Digimon but I would not take them lightly, especially a large group of them."  
"Glad to know, Wormmon." Ken thanked. The Floramon soon held up their hands.  
"Allergy Shower!" They hands began shooting out a yellow mist.  
"Poison Smash!" The Mushmon threw small mushrooms at us.  
"Boom Boom Punch!" V-mon spun his arms around and hit a few of the attackers. Patamon used his ear wings to slap a Floramon in the face.  
"Scratch Beat!" Armadimon's claws made short work of a Mushmon in front of him.  
"Petit Tackle!" Wormmon body slammed one Mushmon that knocked down two more of them.  
"Allergy Shower!" A Floramon charged Tailmon.  
"Cat's Eye!" The Floramon turned the attack on herself when she saw Tailmon's glowing eyes.  
"I quit… I'm so tired… Time for a nap." The Floramon fell over, victim to her own attack. Our Digimon were pushing them back so we could escape the pocket.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Poison Smash!" A Mushmon running parallel to Hawkmon tossed out four of his mushrooms.  
"Feather Slash!" Hawkmon took the lone feather on his head and threw it. It acted like a boomerang and destroyed all the mushrooms before returning to him.  
"I'll remember this!" The Mushmon growled as he fled. Hawkmon suddenly jumped back a second later to try and avoid a projectile that landed near him.  
"A shuriken?" He looked to a tree when a blanket that looked like the tree bark flew away from it revealing a small, red ninja Digimon with an Evil Ring around his head. He then jumped on a nearby roof.  
"You dodged my shuriken this time… not bad at all. The next one won't miss!" He pulled out another one. I leaned back against a nearby wall.  
"Seems like you're good with the shuriken…" I got his attention. "But you're only the second best in the Digital World." I stepped off the wall and gave him a '2' signal.  
"What? Then, who is the best?"  
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Hawkmon shook one of his fingers. "That would be me, Igamon." Brilliant, we did the _Kaiketsu Zubat_ thing perfectly.  
"Let's do it, Hawkmon! Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Bursting Purity, SHURIMON!"

Shurimon wasted no time attacking as he threw out one of his arms which forced Igamon to jump in order to avoid getting hit.  
"So you can use the shuriken, too…"  
"Indeed I can."  
"I don't like that…" Igamon threw out another shuriken that Shurimon jumped over. Igamon then jumped in the air two and pulled out the sword he had sheathed on his back. He threw a few jabs but they were deflected by Shurimon's shurikens. They landed on opposite roofs and stared each other down.  
"Shurimon, you're so cool!" I could help but shout. He really is amazing. However, my mood changed as suddenly I found myself staring at a bunch of Floramon and Mushmon down the alleyway.  
"There she is!" Sounds like that Mushmon that Hawkmon bested brought back friends.  
"Get her!" A Floramon yelled and I turned and took off as fast as my feet could carry.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"V-mon Head!" "Scratch Beat!" "Petit Tackle "Air Shot!" "Cat Punch!" Our Digimon were taking down attacker after attacker but the horde seemed endless.  
"There's no end to them!" Tailmon said what we were all thinking. This is starting to feel like Dome City all over again. Hopefully, no one gets left behind again.  
"I'm sure all the Digimon in the village are being controlled." Hikari guessed.  
"Guys! Run!" Miyako screamed at us as we saw her getting pursued by a lot of bad Digimon. We didn't need to be told twice as we took off as well. "Wait!"  
"Everyone, this way, ribbit!" A voice cried from an alley we were coming up on. Takeru quickly doubled back and me and him saw a Gekomon holding up a manhole cover. "Come on, hurry up, ribbit!" He didn't look controlled so I guess we could trust him.  
"Guys, this way!" Takeru yelled out.

We soon began going down into the sewers to try to escape from our attackers. It wasn't the best idea, but we needed to regroup and rethink on how we were going to take this tower.  
"A manhole? Why is a manhole in the Edo period?" Daisuke questioned.  
"That's because this isn't the Edo period, but the Digital World." I told him.  
"That doesn't matter, just hurry up!" Miyako yelled. "Shurimon! Come back!" A moment later, Shurimon flew back down to where we were before devolving back to Hawkmon.  
"Sorry, Miyako-san. I told Igamon we'd continue our fight later."  
"Who cares? Get down in there!" We all stayed quiet for a few moments when we all were finally down here. After there were no sounds of someone trying to lift the manhole cover, we guessed that we lost the controlled Digimon.  
"Looks like we're in the clear. So what is going on?" Ken asked the Gekomon.  
"Well, the Kaiser showed up and took control of the city, ribbit. Those of us who aren't controlled are holed up in the castle. We'll take you to meet with our lord, ribbit."

After walking through the sewers, we soon came into the main chamber of the castle where we met the lord of the city, TonosamaGekomon. Boy, he sure is a big frog.  
"So you're the Chosen Children?" He questioned. "You have done much for my Gekomon and Otamamon, ribbit."  
"We really appreciate what you did for us, ribbit." A Gekomon walked over to where we were sitting.  
"Tama!" An Otamamon jumped out with him.  
"So that was you back then?" Miyako recalled her and Mimi freeing them the day Palmon first Armor-Evolved.  
"Yes, ribbit!"  
"I see… so you actually live in this village."  
"We take care of our lord here in this castle, ribbit."  
"Tama!"

"By the way, do you know where the Digimon Kaiser is?" V-mon asked.  
"I don't think he's here, ribbit…"  
"The Evil Rings came flying and took control of everyone's minds, tama…"  
"So you're the only ones who weren't affected because you were inside the castle?" Armadimon figured. All the Gekomon and Otamamon had tears in their eyes as they nodded.  
"We don't want to be slaves to the Digimon Kaiser again, ribbit… Lord, what should we do, ribbit?"  
"Lord, tama?" We all turned our attention back to TonosamaGekomon who looked like he was going deep into thought.  
"At a time like this…"  
"At a time like this, ribbit…?" The large frog growled as he was thinking hard about what he was doing next. It actually sounded like he was straining.  
"We sleep, ribbit." All of us faceplanted.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Everyone cleared the chamber as TonosamaGekomon took a nap. While the children were discussing about what to do next, an uninvited guest had snuck into the oriental castle and was planning something sinister. Igamon was deeply disappointed that Shurimon fled their fight, and was now itching to settle the score. His orders from the Kaiser were simple, but there was an added bonus to them. If a Dark Spiral controlled TonosamaGekomon went on a rampage, it would lure the Chosen Children out, especially Shurimon.  
"You will be Kaiser-sama's servant too." Igamon chuckled as he latched the spiral on the antenna on the back of his head. TonosamaGekomon soon began waking up which was Igamon's cue to leave. "Next, him…"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Well, no matter what TonosamaGekomon says, our priority is to destroy the Dark Tower." Iori said.  
"That'll be easy! Just Armor-Evolve and take it down! Right, V-mon?" Daisuke asked.  
"Yeah, our opponents seem pretty weak! Piece of cake! Easy as a V!" V-mon claimed. Our conversation was interrupted when the whole castle began to shake.  
"E-earthquake?" I claimed. The room was starting to crumble dust around us and I was worried that the whole place was about to come down around us. Miyako fell to her knees and clutched her head while shrieking.  
"I hate earthquakes! I'm scared!"  
"Calm down, Miyako-san. It's over now." assured Hawkmon.  
"This is terrible, ribbit!" A Gekomon burst into the room with a panicked look on his face. "Our lord is out of control, ribbit!"  
"Eh?!" We all said.  
"So much for opponents being weak…" Wormmon muttered which cause V-mon to nervously chuckle.

We all ran outside to see that indeed TonosamaGekomon was causing a rampage and tearing up anything in his way. A quick look and we could all see why exactly he was destroying the city.  
"An Evil Spiral!" I pointed ahead. The city was already in a panic as even the controlled Digimon were trying to keep out of the rampaging frog's way. A Gekomon had climbed up a ladder and started ringing a bell that served as a way of telling those in the area to evacuate. A large group of Gekomon and Otamamon ran past us but one poor Otamamon got tripped up and stuck under a wooden basket with TonosamaGekomon marching towards her way.  
"H-help me, tama! Don't leave me, tama!" She screamed.  
"Are you alright?" V-mon helped her out.  
"Even our lord has been controlled, ribbit…" The Gekomon with us sadly moaned. "Please, ribbit! Help our lord, ribbit!"  
"Leave it to us!" I assured him.  
"Takeru, be careful! The others are coming too!" Patamon warned. We turned to see the large group of Mushmon and Floramon had regrouped and were marching up to us.

"Alright… let's go, V-mon!" Daisuke said.  
"Let's do it!" V-mon responded.  
"Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Storm of Friendship, LIGHDRAMON!"  
"Let's go, Patamon!" I held up my Digivice. "Digimental Up!"  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"  
"Digimental Up!" Hikari, Ken and Iori shouted.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" "Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!" "Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Let's go, Hawkmon!" I was also ready to go.  
"With pleasure." However, before Hawkmon could Armor-Evolve, a shuriken flew through the air and Hawkmon had to push me out of the way to avoid getting hit by it. "Watch out!"  
"Thanks, Hawkmon." Hawkmon nodded before he turned back to the shuriken that had a paper latched to it.  
"This shuriken… Igamon!"  
"What is it?" He quickly opened it and read it.  
"It's a challenge."  
"A challenge?"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"Silver Blaze!" "Curse of the Queen!" "Precision Sting!" Our three attacks did nothing to the Evil Spiral that was controlling TonosamaGekomon.  
"It didn't come off!" Takeru yelled. We watched as TonosamaGekomon continued with his rampage.  
"I think we're gonna need something stronger if we're gonna get that. At least the good news for us is that he seems more focused on the city." Ken observed.  
"That's not good for the citizens of the city, Ken-kun." I told him.  
"I know, this is a losing battle right now. Give me a minute to think of something."  
"Hurry it up, or there's not gonna be a city left!" Takeru cried.

At the same time, Daisuke and Iori split up but Daisuke soon found himself staring down a bunch of angry Mushmon.  
"H-hey… W-wait a second…" Lighdramon jumped in front of him and used his tail to swipe the Mushmon away.  
"Daisuke, get on!"  
"No need to tell me twice!" He climbed on to his Digimon's back and they moved away from reinforcing Mushmon.  
"Poison Smash!" The Mushmon tried to get them but one quick bolt of Blue Thunder and the smaller mushrooms were destroyed.  
"Here they come." Iori and Digmon looked forward at the group of Floramon who were trying to climb over a stone wall.  
"I'll handle this, dagyaa! Big Crack!" Digmon made short work of the Floramon. That's the smaller Digimon taken care of, now what about TonosamaGekomon… and where did Miyako go to?

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Well, this is one of the more foolish things I've ever done in my life. I had Hawkmon Armor-Evolve into Shurimon so he can deal with Igamon. I get a feeling he's probably responsible for putting that Evil Spiral on TonosamaGekomon. Probably was a way to get us to fight him again. So we decided to deal with him… by hanging onto a kite. Sure we looked cool, but this was still extremely dangerous. It looked like Igamon was meditating on a roof not too far away from the castle. Time to deal with this upstart.  
"Shurimon is here!" He announced.  
"I've waited a long time. Nice to see my actions drew you out." Ah, so he admits to the rampaging Digimon. Shurimon jumped off the kite and landed on the other side of the roof. "Let's fight, Shurimon!" Igamon charged him.  
"Get ready!"

The two of them jumped up and soon began trading blows mid-air.  
"Miyako-san, go inside the tower!" Shurimon ordered. He clearly wanted me in a safer location than a kite that's flying near some sharp objects. Don't want Igamon to cheat and try to harm me or something.  
"Okay! Shurimon, make sure you win!" I told him as I redirected the kite to land on the top balcony of the tower.  
"Leave it to me!" He confidently said as he deflected a shuriken that was thrown at him. He threw out his arm but Igamon jumped up and landed on the spring.  
"I got you!"  
"What?" Shurimon was surprised by the move. When I finally landed, I just caught a glimpse of Shurimon getting thrown off the roof!  
"Shurimon!" I cried out for him.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Samurai Tone!" TonosamaGekomon fired sonic waves from the large horns attached to him right at us.  
"Here it comes!" Nefertimon shouted and we all dodge it. Thank goodness, because the building and emergency bell behind us was blown to shrapnel! "That was close…"  
"We can't defeat a Perfect-Level by ourselves!" Hikari claimed.  
"You're right, Hikari-chan, we need the others but they're preoccupied right now." Takeru observed. If we could just get everyone to focus their attacks… I looked over to the Dark Tower and an idea hit me. We lure the Shogun Digimon to that Dark Tower… we could trick him into destroying it himself.  
"Guys!" I yelled while pointing to the tower. They look like they figured out what I was thinking and nodded. We flew over to the tower and got in front of it. "Hey, we're over here! Give us your best shot!" I taunted.  
"Samurai Tone!"  
"Now! Move!" We flew out of the way and my plan worked perfectly. The tower exploded into dark rubble. "We did it!" Of course, TonosamaGekomon was not influenced by the tower but that should free up the others to assist us with him.

"It's up to you, Daisuke-kun, Iori-kun!" Takeru called out to them as they got over to us.  
"What about you guys?" Iori asked.  
"We'll keep him distracted, you got for the Spiral!" Hikari told them.  
"Right, leave it to us!" Daisuke nodded.  
"Lightning Blade!" TonosamaGekomon's whole body was being electrocuted by the attack, which stopped him completely.  
"I'm counting on you, Digmon!" Iori said to his partner who began digging underground.  
"I'll get him! Gold Rush!" The ground exploded underneath the giant frog and he fell on his back where he slammed the back of his head against the ground, knocking him out cold.  
"We did it!" Iori cheered.  
"Hey, where's Miyako-san?" I questioned.  
"I don't see her or Hawkmon anywhere, Ken-chan." Tetermon looked around.  
"It's not like her to vanish like that."

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I guess I shouldn't have been too worried for Shurimon. Him getting thrown off the roof, he turned it around to his favor and bounced back up to the roofs when the Dark Tower exploded and Igamon's Evil Ring shattered. The problem was that those two were still fighting one another!  
"Iga Style Shuriken Throw!" Igamon threw four shurikens at Shurimon.  
"Autumn Wind!" Shurimon used his hands and feet to deflect them.  
"The Dark Tower was destroyed! Why are you still fighting?" I yelled.  
"I appreciate you freeing me from the Kaiser's influence, but you don't understand. There cannot be two shuriken masters. This is a matter of honor and I will see this duel to its conclusion when there is only one master still standing! Iga Style Clone Technique!" Typical, pride comes before the fall. Igamon soon cloned himself and had Shurimon surrounded. "Iga Style Shuriken Throw!" All the clones threw their shurikens.  
"Leaf Hiding!" Shurimon was enveloped in a tornado of leaves. After a few seconds, he was gone when the leafs blew away.

"Igamon, prepare yourself!" Shurimon shouted as he dropped from above the moment the other clones dissipated. "Kusanagi!" Shurimon threw his large shuriken while Igamon pulled out his sword and tried to deflect it. A second later, the blade was cut in half, part of his mask had been cut and Igamon fell to his knees. Shurimon had proven to be the better ninja. "The battle is over." Shurimon said as he landed on the roof.  
"I… I concede. But mark my words Shurimon, I will return… and next time, I will defeat you!" He threw a smoke bomb and when it cleared, he was gone.  
"Shurimon, you won!" I cheered as I ran below him from the tower. "You're so cool! I love you!"  
"M-Miyako-san…" He blushed so hard; you could see it through the mask.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Miyako returned to the others to find that TonosamaGekomon still had his Evil Spiral but was deep asleep and snoring so loud it could be heard within a ten kilometer radius.  
"He fell asleep…" Otamamon observed.  
"Oh man…" Gekomon groaned. Miyako flew over the others as Shurimon held her in his arms while using his leg shurikens like a helicopter.  
"Miyako-san! Where have you been?" Iori waved and questioned.  
"Nowhere really!" She said.

"Please, ribbit! Remove the Evil Spiral, ribbit!" begged Gekomon.  
"It's a pain, so why don't we cut it off along with his hair?" Daisuke asked. Gekomon flipped out.  
"What are you saying, ribbit!?"  
"I'm just kidding!"  
"Stop, ribbit! Stop, ribbit! Stop, ribbit! Stop, ribbit! Stop, ribbit! You're horrible, ribbit! You're horrible, ribbit!"  
"What?" Daisuke was asking the others about the glare he was being given.  
"Daisuke-kun, you're cruel." Hikari turned her back to him which caused Daisuke to panic.  
"But I said it was a joke! Hikari-chan, I was just kidding!" Hikari began laughing as she was just being hard on him.  
"Alright, aim for the Spiral!" Takeru ordered the Digimon.  
"Silver Blaze!" "Curse of the Queen!" "Precision Sting!" "Blue Thunder!" "Gold Rush!" "Autumn Wind!" The Digimon coordinated their attack and after a few tense moments, the spiral was destroyed. A minute later, TonosamaGekomon began slowly waking up. He looked over to see Gekomon and Otamamon with tears in their eyes.  
"What's wrong, ribbit? Why are you crying, ribbit?"  
"Well, how was this for a birthday, Ken?" Daisuke asked.  
"Not the greatest, but it was certainly anything but boring." Ken shrugged his shoulders.

Back at the Kaiser's lair, he was watching the Chosen Children say goodbye.  
"We're really, really grateful for your help, ribbit!" A Gekomon said.  
"We owe you!" admitted TonosamaGekomon.  
"Please, no need to thank us!" Daisuke waved a Japanese hand fan.  
"He's really taking this seriously!" Takeru was referring to the whole Feudal Japan vibe.  
"Yeah… it's embarrassing." Miyako rolled her eyes.  
"Even after he tried to cut off the lord's hair…" Iori said.  
"Yeah, Daisuke-kun, you should be a bit more diplomatic next time." Ken advised.  
"Come on, let's go home!" Hikari insisted.

"They got you again." Monodramon observed.  
"Hmph! They can do as they please. I just hope Ken like his present. Shame it didn't kill him. As for the rest of them… let them feel a little joy for now. Enjoy their victory. After all, none of them can comprehend what I'm planning…" The Kaiser began to laugh as he continued on with his grand project.

A grand project that would give him his final victory…

* * *

That doesn't bode well, does it?

Quick thing to mention but I didn't want to waste time in the chapter saying it, but the kids are in their summer clothes now. Ken's outfit is a blue-grey short sleeved button up dress shirt and light grey khakis that go past his knees. Ross's is a 1990's Jeff Bagwell jersey t-shirt and tan cargo shorts.

I really don't have much to say relating to this one. See you all for the next one.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	20. Ruling the Waters! Sabmarimon!

This should've been done sooner, but I wanted to play The Old Republic after a friend convinced me to get back into it. Should've maybe waited...

Anyways, shoutout to **draco1221** for the fav and to **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **MadDogLucario96** for the reviews.

I need to hurry with this darn editing process, the Nine-Nine are back in a few hours!

* * *

 **Chapter 19: Ruling the Waters! Sabmarimon!**

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. July 9th, 2002. 1932 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Ah… summer vacation. One of the best times for students around the world. The time where they have little care about the multitude of school work. A time where many of their cares are pushed aside. Shame that doesn't apply to us Chosen Children. Instead of having fun during most of the day and just relaxing, we get the whole nine-yards of warfare. Every day is struggle as we keep trying to roll the Kaiser back. Still, we now have the full day to dedicate to fighting so that should help. The problem is that the Kaiser has been eerily silent since that whirlwind of events back in May. Somethings off about all of this, but we don't know what. Plus, earlier today, much of the Old Breed had been doing other things, which almost led to a disaster.

 _Digital World. July 9th, 2002. 1221 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The waters of the Digital Ocean were calm around a lone off shore drilling rig that was just a few dozen meters off the rocky coast. However, this rig looked like it had seen better days as the land bridge connecting it to the mainland was destroyed and there was much damage around the rig itself, including its main smokestack which was also in ruins. In the waters, there lurked a menacing threat from below. A MegaSeadramon with an Evil Spiral rose above the waves and slowly circled around the rig like a vulture around its dinner. Down below in the pipe line, the Chosen Children looked out a window to the serpent.  
"Damnit!" cursed Daisuke.  
"But why… isn't he coming after us?" Miyako wondered.  
"Because he knows there's no need, Miyako-san." Ken told her.  
"Right, he knows it's only a matter of time. When we run out of air, we'll…" Takeru didn't want to say what was coming next. Instead, the group turned their attention to Iori who was sitting on the floor with a guilty look on his face.  
"It's my fault…" He said. "Because of me…"

 _Digital World. July 9th, 2002. 1104 Hours._

An hour before, the mood for the Chosen Children was much better. They had arrived early to the Digital World and had already liberated the area by knocking down the nearby Dark Tower. Their celebration didn't last long as they soon picked up the signal of a Digimental nearby.  
"Alright, it seems like it's coming from somewhere in this oil rig." Daisuke observed on his D-3.  
"It has to be mine!" Iori claimed.  
"Yeah, dagyaa!" Armadimon agreed with him.  
"I'm not sure… It could be Takeru-san's or Ken-san's or Hikari-san's…" Hawkmon expressed doubt but soon noticed that Armadimon had ran off. The reason being was that Iori was running across the bridge platform at a fast pace.  
"First one to get there wins!" The youngest member of the group shouted.  
"I won't lose!" Armadimon followed close behind, taking part in Iori's game.  
"So impatient…" Miyako shook her head.  
"Wait!" "Please wait!" Patamon and Hawkmon flew after them. Another moment later, the rest of the group ran to catch up with them.

Unbeknownst to them, MegaSeadramon was lurking nearby and waiting for word to attack. The Kaiser was also well aware of the situation and watching them run into the oil rig on one of his monitors.  
"What do we do, Os- Digimon Kaiser-sama?" Monodramon asked.  
"I'm busy right now; I don't have time for them." The Kaiser said. "MegaSeadramon, I leave it to you. Do what you want." He turned off the monitor and went back to his grand project. With the go-ahead, MegaSeadramon went to work. He first swiped the oil tower which took out the bridge as well before he attacked one of the support beams on the rig. He then used this Thunder Javelin to take out the other tower that caused a large explosion and rocked the whole rig, knocking the Chosen Children to the floor. He then swam down the pipeline until he reached an area he was certain the children were in and used his horn to slice some cuts into the pipeline, letting the air out and the water in.

"It's flooding!" Takeru yelled out as the water began to flood in.  
"What do we do?" Iori shouted.  
"Don't ask me!" Daisuke responded.  
"Daisuke-kun! Give me a hand here!" Ken called him over. "See this lever? It says 'emergency shutter'! Help me pull it!"  
"Right!" The two of them pulled hard on the lever and large shutters opened up above them which stopped the water from flowing in. "We're saved!"  
"But what now?" Tailmon asked.  
"Huh?" The girls questioned.  
"We can't go up anymore, which means we're trapped here." The realization soon hit the children. They couldn't escape without drowning or being killed by MegaSeadramon and if they stay… it will be only a matter of time before they're out of air.

 _Digital World. July 9th, 2002. 1222 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"It's my fault… it's my…" I kept muttering to myself.  
"What's that about your fault, dagyaa?" questioned Armadimon.  
"Can't you see it?" I raised my voice as I stood up. "I ran here without even checking if it was a trap."  
"It's not like that, dagyaa. You just happened to be the first one, dagyaa."  
"It's my fault!"  
"Hey, guys! What's this?" Patamon turned everyone's attention to something he found. It appears he found some sort of red submersible that was down here with us.  
"It says 'Emergency Escape Pod'." Hawkmon informed as he flew over to where Patamon was.  
"Alright! We're saved!" Daisuke pumped his fist in the air.  
"But it's only for one person…" Patamon admitted. Everyone ran over to see it while I stood still. So what this all means is that only one person can escape, maybe with a Digimon if they can squeeze in there.

"I think Iori-kun should go." What? I looked up as soon as Hikari said that.  
"Agreed! I thought the same!" Miyako chimed in.  
"Me too." Both Takeru and Ken agreed.  
"And you, Daisuke?" V-mon asked.  
"Of course, right?" Hikari walked up to him.  
"I agree with Hikari-chan!"  
"Come on, Iori-kun. Get in the escape pod."  
"Wh-why me? Because I'm the youngest? Then I won't." I told them.  
"What? You won't?" Daisuke ran up to me. "So you don't accept our help!?"  
"No, I can't!" I yelled.  
"Stop making a fuss and just do it!"  
"I said no!"

"It's just like Iori-san, isn't it?" Hawkmon whispered to Miyako.  
"Leave it to me." She winked. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't we draw straws to be fair?"  
"Draw straws, dagyaa?" wondered Armadimon.  
"But doing that to decide…" Daisuke muttered.  
"No, I think it's a good idea. I agree!" Hikari said. "Iori-kun, isn't that alright?" Well, I suppose it would be fairer, I guess. I then nodded in agreement.  
"You don't have to make any for us Digimon." V-mon told them.  
"We sure? Patamon or I could fit in with whoever wins." Wormmon said.  
"That would really only work if Takeru-kun or I wins, Wormmon." Ken told him.  
"I agree with Wormmon." Tailmon spoke up. "It should be fair for all of us."  
"Agreed!" Patamon chimed.  
"Yeah, humans are Digimon, we're all equal!" Takeru announced.  
"Then let's do rock-paper-scissors!" Daisuke shouted.  
"The straws are fine…"

After a minute, Miyako was ready with the straws she made.  
"Alright, now one of these has a red end so whoever pulls that one out will go." Miyako explained. "Okay, first is…"  
"I'll go first…" Daisuke was about to pull one but he got shoved out of the way by Takeru who dragged me along.  
"Iori-kun, first!"  
"M-me?"  
"C'mon, draw, dagyaa!" Armadimon said.  
"Okay." I looked at the straws for a moment before I finally picked the one I was going to pull and took it out. As it turned out, it had a red tip on the end which meant that I won.  
"Great, Iori!" Miyako cheered.  
"You got the winning straw on the first draw!" Hikari clapped.  
"I guess it's destiny after all, dagyaa." Armadimon agreed.  
"Come on, Iori-kun." Takeru motioned to the pod.

Something was really suspicious about all this. I get the feeling that this was all planed just to get me to go in the pod. I took the straw I had in my hand and smacked Miyako's hand with it.  
"Ow!" She said as she dropped the straws in her hand… and revealed that they were all red tipped.  
"That's cheating!" I shouted. "You did all this just to make sure I would win because I refused to go in the first place!"  
"Well, I guess it was cheating, but…"  
"That's not fair!"  
"But we had no choice…"  
"Yeah, you're being too stubborn!" Hikari cried.  
"What an idea…" Daisuke was surprised as he looked at the straws on the floor.  
"I was wondering what I'd do if I won…" V-mon muttered.  
"Uh, were you guys unaware of what was going on?" Hawkmon asked.  
"You all knew?"  
"It was common sense." Patamon told them, with made them both sigh in embarrassment.

"Anyway, I'm not going." I declared. "We're all down here because of me! I shouldn't be the one who's allowed to escape because of my foolishness!"  
"You're going, and that's final… even if we have to drag you into that pod." Ken threatened. "Daisuke-kun, Takeru-kun, a hand please."  
"Okay!" They both said as the two of them grabbed my arms while Ken took my legs.  
"H-hey! L-let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" I shouted as they dragged me into the pod's seat. They then pressed a button which began sealing the pod.  
"Iori-kun, when you get there, tell Jou-san about this." Hikari advised. "Gomamon is the only one of our Digimon partners who can be able to get us out of this." The glass in front of the pod soon sealed and the chamber was now beginning to fill with water.  
"We believe in you, Iori!" Armadimon informed.  
"Let me out! Let me out of here!" I pounded on the pod glass but to no avail. I was now completely submerged. Of course, another concern of mine was the fact that MegaSeadramon was still out there, but it looks like the others were already on top of that.  
"Now! MegaSeadramon is away!" Miyako shouted and I suddenly felt the whole pod jerk and be shot out of the pipe line before flipped a few labeled switches and turned the craft to head straight for the surface. I came out near the shore besides the TV and got out. Alright, I have no choice now; I've got to find Jou!

Like typical summer days in Japan, it was really hot. I ran over to my house to try to call Jou's cell phone. I only went back to my house because I had the number in my room.  
"The number you are trying to reach is out of its service area or switched off." The automated voice on the phone told me. Switched off? Jou, what are you doing right now!? I then pulled out the phone book and found his apartment number. A quick call there and I was informed by his eldest brother Shin that he was currently out at cram school. Thankfully, he gave me the name and address of it after I informed him of what was going on considering he knows about the Digimon.

"Shinagawa cram school… Shinagawa cram school…" I kept muttering to myself as I waited for the elevator to reach the twelfth floor. When it opened up, I was surprised to find Mother and Grandfather on it.  
"Oh, Iori. You're home already?" She said with her hands full of grocery bags. "Good timing. I wanted you to go to Nobuzane-san's."  
"Ah, well, right now…"  
"Do you have something to do?"  
"Well…" Great, do I have to tell her the truth right now? If I have to explain it all, it'll be too late!  
"What is it? Please tell me."  
"I'm sorry, I can't tell." I lowered my head.  
"You can't…? What do you mean?"  
"Don't ask, Fumiko-san." Grandfather spoke up.  
"But…"  
"If you force him, Iori will have no choice but to lie. If you can't say, that's fine. Better than lying. Just don't lie, ever." Grandfather's stern look turned into a smile once more as he drank more Chu-Chu jelly.  
"Thank you very much." I bowed before going into the elevator.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"Hey, can you stop that?" Miyako shouted at Daisuke who was pounding his head against a railing. "It's annoying." She told him as he looked up at her.  
"And can you stop tapping your foot? It's annoying." He countered.  
"I'm not doing it because I feel like it!"  
"Guys, no need to get upset!" Armadimon interrupted.  
"We're not!" Daisuke turned his back to Miyako.  
"Really?"  
"Really!" Miyako turned her back.  
"'kay then. Hey, you guys want to play a word game to lighten up the mood?"  
"Sorry, I'm not in the mood for that…" I told him.  
"Me either. It's actually better we don't speak as much to try to save some air." Ken advised.

"How can you think of something like that in a situation like this?" Hawkmon questioned Armadimon about his previous suggestion.  
"Because I believe in Iori."  
"I believe in him too… but there's something called a time limit." Miyako told him.  
"Yeah, if we don't hurry, we'll run out of air." Daisuke said. "And when we run out of air… when we run out…" We soon began hearing a clanging sound from down below, so we went down the stairs to find Takeru with a pickaxe digging out a hole out of the ground.  
"Takeru-kun, what are you doing?" I asked.  
"I think the Digimental is around here." He explained.  
"Thinking about the Digimental at a time like this?" Daisuke was confused.  
"I guess, but isn't it better than wasting our time doing nothing?" He took another swing with the pickaxe.  
"Miyako-san, let's help too." Hawkmon suggested.  
"Yeah!"  
"Let's all help." Tailmon insisted.  
"Yeah!" V-mon and Wormmon nodded.  
"Right, dagyaa!" Armadimon was already at work by pushing rocks out of the way. We all soon got to work, hopeful to find the Digimental and more importantly, Iori arriving in time.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"He's taking a test right now, boy…" The man at the front desk of the cram school informed me.  
"It's an emergency. Kido Jou-san…" I was insisting.  
"We have a policy of not calling anyone during a test."  
"But…"  
"Well, if a family member was in an accident, or a parent was hospitalized due to sudden illness… If something like that happened, it would be a different story."  
"His parents are in the hosp…" I stopped myself before I said anymore of my lie.  
 _"_ _Just don't lie, ever."_ Grandfather's words from earlier echoed in my head. My mind then flashed to an image of the others dying from the lack of air, which is what is going to happen if I don't get Jou quick. What do I do? What do I do?

 _P.O.V. – Jou Kido_

"Dad!" I shouted as I ran out of the building. Iori explained to me what had happened with the others; a bad run in with MegaSeadramon at an oil rig. Of course, I had to keep up appearances to the rest of building.  
"Jou-san, I'm really sorry!" Iori apologized as he tried to keep up with me. "How can I make it up?"  
"Don't worry about it! I was really shocked at first, but there wasn't anything else you could do!"  
"I'm really, really sorry!"  
"I said it's alright!" I soon stopped running as soon as we were well away from the building.  
"What are you doing?" He asked as I pulled out my cellphone. "We have to hurry…"  
"I know. But first… I need to do something. You say the others are trapped underwater? Only one Digimon I know that can help. Now, give me a second, I'm calling Koushiro."  
"Hello?" Koushiro's voice answered.  
"Ah, Koushiro? It's Jou. Listen, Daisuke and the rest are in trouble, so I have a favor to ask…"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Another swing of the pickaxe by Takeru soon brought results as he knocked away some rock that was covering the Digimental, and it looked familiar.  
"The Digimental of Sincerity." Takeru noticed.  
"Just like with Yamato-san and Mimi-san, there's another copy of one of ours." Hikari soon walked up to it and began trying to pull it out. "Nope, it's not mine."  
"Then, it has to be Iori-kun's, as we thought." Ken said.  
"That means I'll get a new Armor Evolution!" Armadimon sounded real excited.  
"But what kind of Armor Evolution will it be?" Patamon wondered.  
"That's obvious. I'm sure…" He proceeded to describe some sort of handsome man in armor; I guess something kinda related to Angemon. He sure sounded proud of it.  
"No way! Probably…" I described just a large version of him with large spikes on him.  
"Well, it's certainly better than what I came up for Patamon." Takeru admitted.  
"What do you mean, Takeru-kun?" Ken asked.  
"During the first week I met Patamon, at time we both didn't know he'd evolve into Angemon so we were wondering what he would evolve into. I was only eight years old so I just ended up describing a pig and hippo." He started to laugh causing all of us to join in.

"They're all laughing." V-mon looked at us.  
"Armadimon's trust in Iori-san has spread to everyone." Hawkmon said.  
"That's great!" Wormmon cheered.  
"But… they're all tired." Tailmon observed as we all calmed down. "Laughing excessively and trying to keep their spirits up… They just get close to their physical and mental limits." As soon as Tailmon finished speaking, Miyako began to cough.  
"A-are you alright, Miyako-san?" Hikari asked.  
"It can't be…" Miyako looked out the viewport. "A vision? No, it isn't! It's Ikkakumon!"  
"Ikkakumon came to save us!" We all ran up to the viewport to see him coming our way.

"Sorry to keep you wa-!" He got swiped in the face by MegaSeadramon who came back. "You guys weren't kidding about it being MegaSeadramon. I beat him in Tokyo before… but can I win without becoming Zudomon?" He soon got swiped again and hit the rocks beneath him.  
"Ikkakumon!" I yelled out the viewport after I shoved the girls out of the way.  
"Harpoon Vulcan!" One of Ikkakumon's shots hit MegaSeadramon in the face but it had no effect on him.  
"Yeah! Keep attacking the Evil Spiral!"  
"Harpoon Vulcan!" His shot missed and blew a nearby rock. MegaSeadramon counter attacked and used a lightning attack that hit the seabed and Ikkakumon.  
"Ikkakumon!" The girls and I shouted before the whole placed was rocked and a large torrent of water crashed into us.  
"What the… what's going on!?" I questioned. The answer came when a giant whale burst through the pipe line walls and opened its mouth to reveal Jou and Iori!

 _P.O.V. – Jou Kido_

"We're here to save you!" I yelled to the others.  
"Hurry, get into Whamon's mouth!" Iori insisted.  
"Iori!" Miyako cried.  
"Jou!" Patamon flew up to us.  
"See? What did I tell you, dagyaa?" Armadimon sounded proud about his faith in Iori.  
"Exactly, it's Iori-sama!" Daisuke rubbed Armadimon's head. At the same time, it sounded like Ikkakumon was having his hands full MegaSeadramon out there. We don't have much of a window to be able to escape unscathed.  
"But… why Whamon?" Hikari questioned.  
"I asked Koushiro to help track him down and he was the only one I could think of that could help us out of this."  
"Always a pleasure to help, Hikari, Takeru, you're both looking well." Whamon said.  
"You too, Whamon." Takeru replied back.

"What are you doing? Hurry up!" Iori reminded us that we were still in danger.  
"Iori-kun!" Ken waved for his attention.  
"What is it?"  
"It's your Digimental!" Daisuke informed. I looked down to see that it was the same Digimental that I picked up in that snowy cave when we first came to Gomamon's assistance.  
"My… Digimental?"  
"Same thing with Yamato-kun's and Mimi-kun's Digimentals, right?" I questioned. The others nodded.  
"If it's the Digimental of Sincerity, then it fits Iori well, doesn't it?" Tailmon said.  
"That's not true." muttered Iori.  
"Huh? What do you mean? I think it fits you perfectly." I told him.  
"Come on, get down here!" Daisuke motioned.  
"N-no! All this was caused by that Digimental. That Digimental…"

Our attention turned back to Miyako who was coughing hard behind us.  
"We have more important things, we have to hurry and escape!"  
"Yeah, we will! After you take the Digimental." shouted Daisuke.  
"I said I don't want it!"  
"You have to be kidding… the Crest of Sincerity will end up in the bottom of the ocean!" I explained. "Iori-kun… come on, let's go together!" I grabbed his hand and led him down to where the Digimental rested on the ground. "Come on, pick it up."  
"Pick it up already…" Daisuke repeated.  
"It's useless… I can't lift it." Iori told us without even touching it to try.  
"You won't know until you try, right?" Takeru asked.  
"But… but it's my fault that everyone was in trouble."  
"Eh? It is?" Daisuke questioned before Ken lightly jabbed him in the side. "I mean… if you want to blame someone about closing the shutters…"  
"It's no one's fault, Iori-kun." Ken assured him.

"And I… I lied." Iori began to have tears in his eyes when he admitted that. "Grandfather said I should never lie… That's why… I don't deserve the Digimental of Sincerity…" The dam broke on his tears and they began to come down hard on his cheeks. I decided that I had to be the one to help him with this. I kneeled down and grabbed his shoulders.  
"Well, there are bad lies and good lies." He suddenly stopped crying when I said that. "Lies that hurt people and lies that save people."  
"Yup, yup, it was a justified lie, dagyaa!" Armadimon chimed in.  
"Exactly!"  
"But…" Iori tried to protest.  
"If anything, I'll talk to your grandfather when we get back. Your lie didn't hurt me at all, but if you hadn't lied, who knows what could have happened…"  
"Jou-san…" He cleared his eyes.  
"Do you understand now?"  
"Yes."

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

After Jou's helpful words, I turned back around to look at the Digimental on the ground.  
"Okay, Iori, try to pick it up, dagyaa." Armadimon encouraged. I struggled a bit before I finally was able to pull it out of the ground.  
"See, I knew it was Iori's!" Daisuke claimed.  
"Iori, Armor Evolution, dagyaa!"  
"Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Whirling Sincerity, SABMARIMON!"

Sabmarimon had a bit of the traits that Armadimon had but he looked more like a metal swordfish crossed with a submarine and had a large glass dome on the top of his back and head.  
"Sincerity is something else. Cool!" Daisuke was impressed.  
"It's definitely a sea Digimon!" V-mon observed.  
"Come on, let's hurry and get out of here!" Jou led the others into Whamon's mouth.  
"Iori, get in, dagyaa." The dome on the back of Sabmarimon opened up and I climbed in and grabbed the control handles in front of me. Can't get any closer to the fighting than this.  
"Alright, Sabmarimon. Let's go."  
"Let's move out, dagyaa!" He tore right through the pipeline walls and straight into the water. Whamon was leading the others out but MegaSeadramon tossed Ikkakumon who was biting his tail towards their direction. Whamon acted quickly and opened his mouth to quickly catch him before heading to the surface.

Sabmarimon turned towards MegaSeadramon and swam straight at him.  
"Aqua Vulcan!" Small projectiles of air shot out from his sharp spear but they were having little effect on the giant Digimon.  
"Turn left!" I yelled as MegaSeadramon swiped his tail at us. We were quickly able to dodge it but we had little chance against him if something didn't change.  
"Hey, you overgrown lizard! I wasn't done with you yet!" I turned my head to see MetalSealmon swimming back down to us.  
"Iori-kun! We're here to give a hand!" Jou called out. He was in a similar compartment that was on MetalSealmon's chest and neck except unlike me, he was standing up rather than lying on his stomach.  
"Thanks, Jou-san! We need to combine our attacks!"  
"Got it! Let's go, MetalSealmon!"

Both our Digimon began swimming away, forcing MegaSeadramon to follow us. All the while, we had to avoid the bolts of lightning he was shooting at us.  
"We can't get a clear shot like this! Listen, we'll be the decoys and lure him away!" MetalSealmon informed.  
"Counting on you, dagyaa." Sabmarimon said as we dodge out of the way of MegaSeadramon's sharp fangs. MetalSealmon went into an undersea tunnel that MegaSeadramon smashed into while we went a different way. After a few moments of misdirection and cutting through hard rock, MetalSealmon had swam upwards that left MegaSeadramon wide open for us to cut through a rock wall and attack the Evil Spiral. "Oxygen Homing!" Large torpedoes of pressurized air shot forward and struck MegaSeadramon in the chest, giving us the window to charge right into the Evil Spiral and destroy it with Sabmarimon's sharp nose.  
"You did it, Sabmarimon!" I sighed in relief; glad that it was all over.  
"Way to go, guys!" Jou yelled out as MetalSealmon swam next to us. A close call today, but we made it through. Afterwards, Sabmarimon used the calm time we had gained to show me the wonders of the ocean. In some ways, it's similar to ours, but breathtaking all the same.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Seems like they were saved somehow…" The Kaiser muttered to himself as he concentrated back on other projects.  
"Is that alright, Digimon Kaiser-sama?" Monodramon asked before he noticed the screen. "What are you doing? Is this the plan you were talking about before?"  
"It doesn't concern you." He chuckled. Soon, his grand masterpiece would be complete.

And then nothing would stop him in his conquest of the Digital World…

* * *

Well, that was certainly a close call.

A bit of a heads up, but the next to chapters will be originals before the next true episode but at this point now, the updates will go a bit slower. Hopefully, I'll still have plenty of free time after class but we'll see... at least the first week isn't as crowded with work.

Take care everyone.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	21. Jungle Warfare! Blossomon!

Sorry I took a lot longer with this one. This one really had me struggling for a while.

I'm gonna be fully honest, this is the weakest chapter I've ever written. Sorry, Koushiro, you drew the short straw on this one. Still, I suppose it's at least better than nothing... and better than some other things I've seen.

Shoutout to **Dreaw Mac** and **foggsaurus8** for the faves and follows.

And shoutouts to **MadDogLucario96** and **DigimonAT0318** for the reviews. Oh, and **Vietnam123**? Yes to your question, I will do Diablomon's Counterattack and .tri as well as Hurricane Touchdown very soon. Now I'm kinda looking forward to writing .tri because DigimonAT gave me a really good idea of what to do with that. You know what I mean. ;)

Anyways, you've been waiting long enough.

* * *

 **Chapter 20: Jungle Warfare! Blossomon!**

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. July 15th, 2002. 1123 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Would you please stop flying around and just fight us!?" Daisuke yelled. I just laughed. At Chosen HQ, we had been bringing in a lot of enmities that made it more like a cool hangout. TV's, console games, movies, it almost felt like we were normal kids minus the whole fate of the Digital World in our hands. Takeru, Ken, myself and Daisuke were currently playing Super Smash Bros. Melee with Takeru as Link, Daisuke as Fox, Ken as Ness and myself as Kirby. I was currently just flying above the arena of Fountain of Dreams while the others were all beating each other up, much to Daisuke's frustration and my amusement.  
"You complaining about it only makes me want to do it more." I told him.  
"That's it!" He got up and walked up to the GameCube and turned it off.  
"Aw…" "Come on!" "Spoilsport!" The three of us complained.  
"You brought this on yourself. I'm never playing that with you again."  
"You're just mad because you were in last." I teased.

"Actually, it's good you switched that off, it's about time we get to work." Koushiro got our attention. We turned around to look at him working on the computer with Tentomon right next to him.  
"So what exactly is the plan today, Koushiro-san?" Miyako asked.  
"Simple, we go into the Digital World, smash a Dark Tower, give the Kaiser a headache, and then go home." Daisuke sat up and bragged.  
"It's getting more complicated than that, Daisuke-kun." Koushiro said. "We're slowly beginning to reach a major problem."  
"What kind of problem, Koushiro-san?" Hikari questioned.  
"It's this whole fight. We- we're not going to be able to keep it going for too much longer." Koushiro admitted.  
"What? What's the problem?" Daisuke sounded confused by that. "All we need to do is knock down Dark Towers and help free the Digital World from the Kaiser's control. What's so hard about that?"  
"Daisuke-kun, we can't keep doing that. All we've been doing is knocking down those Dark Towers and Os- the Digimon Kaiser just keeps building up new ones." Ken said.  
"Ken-kun is right. This whole plan is really just not getting us anywhere in terms of stopping him." Koushiro nodded.

"Right now, we're getting caught up in a war of attrition. None of us can keep going to the Digital World and taking out a multitude of Dark Towers without getting some sort of rest." I held up my finger to keep Daisuke from speaking as he was about to say something in disagreement. "Not even you, Daisuke, so don't you try to argue."  
"I agree with Ross-san. There are some days where I feel more exhausted to go to the Digital World. I still want to save it of course, but my body keeps telling me that I need to rest for a little while before going back into the fighting." Iori agreed with my concerns.  
"The only good news right now is that it's summer break which gives us all day to deal with the Kaiser in the Digital World and not just a few hours in the afternoon after class." Takeru pointed out.  
"Of course, that still doesn't change the fact that the Kaiser still has an advantage over us." Tailmon spoke up. "He still has a full twenty-four hours to be able to do what he wants while you all get a fraction of that."  
"Yeah, you all still have to go home and rest." Patamon added.  
"Well, surely he has to rest too." claimed Daisuke.  
"Yeah, but he simply just wakes up and goes to immediate work." V-mon muttered.

"Our only true option in terms of defeating the Digimon Kaiser is to find him and his headquarters and stop him once in for all." Koushiro said.  
"Easier said than done." I mumbled.  
"Wait; hold on a second, Koushiro-kun. What exactly do you mean by 'stopping him once and for all'?" We all looked at Ken who had just stood up. "I mean, don't get me wrong, we need to stop him of course, but what exactly do we do then once we have him? He's still my brother…"  
"Well, I don't know if I speak for everyone here but I know that I wouldn't try to truly hurt him." Iori assured him.  
"Our goal should just be to bring him back to the real world, more than likely it will involve him kicking and screaming." Miyako informed.  
"But what's to stop him from simply coming back to start all over again?" Takeru wondered.  
"If we get our hands on him, we'll smash his Dark Digivice to keep him from returning and then have him thrown into a mental asylum just to keep him from doing anything drastic to Ken-kun and his family." I know Ken didn't like that last bit, but Osamu is clearly insane, and will probably try to harm Ken if he is indeed stopped.

"The problem with this whole thing is that we have no idea where exactly he is. We haven't seen or really heard from him since he capture and Dark-Evolved Agumon back in May." Hikari said. Koushiro got up from the computers and walked over to the projector we had and turned it on. It then showed a map of the Digital World; well, the black and white box map we had that signified which areas the Kaiser controlled and which ones he didn't. He soon grabbed a long ruler and used it as a pointer.  
"Well, if that so called 'Kaiser Line' was any indication as well as the newly discovered 'Imperial Line', as Ross-san calls it, further north…"  
"Which we still need to plan in order to break through it, I'd remind you, Koushiro. Taking on six Dark Towers in one area is going to be a challenge." I interrupted.  
"Exactly, but if these two perimeters are any indication, then the Kaiser's headquarters is somewhere around this area." He used the pointer to circle a large region that was south of large ocean.  
"That's still a wide area to search." Iori admitted.  
"And what about what exactly the headquarters is? For all we know, it might look completely inconspicuous or under the waters of the ocean." Takeru expressed a concern.  
"Incon-what?" Daisuke questioned.  
"It means not as visible or attracting attention." Ken gave the textbook definition.

"Look, how's about right now we just do what we've been doing for the time being and focus on what to do at a later date?" suggested Hikari.  
"Good idea, Hikari-chan. There are still a few more areas in between a freed area and that 'Imperial Line'." Takeru nodded.  
"And once we get through that, we can focus on where exactly the Digimon Kaiser is hiding in that region." Ken added.  
"It don't matter where he is, I'll dig him out, dagyaa!" claimed Armadimon.  
"He won't be hiding forever." Hawkmon agreed.  
"Still, I'm worried about why he's been so quiet lately." Wormmon spoke in a soft tone.  
"Whatever it is, Wormmon, we'll deal with it like we have with everything else he's thrown at us!" Daisuke pumped his fist.  
"I'm with Daisuke-kun. He won't beat us as long as we stick together." Ken said.

"Well, then, if there's going to be no more discussion about future plans, then I suppose we should get going to the Digital World." Koushiro sighed.  
"Koushiro-han! I've got us an area we can deal with a Dark Tower!" Tentomon proudly stated.  
"Well, you guys will have to deal with it without us. I'm tired." Guilmon finally woke up from his nap. Understandable, we've been fighting almost non-stop for the past few days.  
"As much as I'd like to join the fight today, Guilmon's right. We need to take a bit of a breather for today." I told the others.  
"That's alright, Ross-san. I'll give them a hand today." assured Koushiro.  
"Good luck." I gave them a thumbs up which they gave back.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" Miyako shouted. The room filled in a bright light and the others vanished. Guilmon closed his eyes again while I turned back on the TV and got to waiting for them to return.  
 _"_ _Attention all aircraft, incoming from Stonehenge confirmed on radar. Drop below two-thousand feet and head south to exit combat area."  
"Two-thousand feet? What do they expect us to do? Go underground?"  
"Head towards the ravine and terrain mask. Use the crevasses. Get low and stay low."  
"What are you talking about?! It's suicide to fly into that ravine!"_

 _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

As soon as we got to the Digital World, we could see that we had ended up on a cliff that overlooked a large and very thick jungle.  
"Wow, it's like looking at the Amazon." Iori was in awe of the sight. It was quite impressive but I get a feeling that what it looks amazing from a distance; inside it is a whole other story.  
"So anyone able to see that Dark Tower anywhere in there?" asked Takeru.  
"I don't see it, Takeru-kun." Hikari admitted.  
"It's probably somewhere in that jungle…" Ken said.  
"Which means we have to go in there and find it." Daisuke concluded.  
"What? Are you serious? We could easily get lost in there; it looks like we wouldn't even be able to move in there!" Miyako shouted.  
"The Dark Tower is somewhere in this area, and if we can't see it then it is more than likely is in that jungle." I explained.  
"You aren't serious about going in that mess, are you Koushiro-san?" Miyako sounded very concerned. Maybe she claustrophobic or something of that nature? However, she makes a good point, that jungle looks very nasty on the ground.  
"No, I don't think we should go down in there. Daisuke-kun, Iori-kun, stay here. The rest of us will get into the air and try to find the tower. When we do, we'll come get you and we'll take it out." Everyone nodded in agreement and a few short Armor-Evolutions later, we were all in the air.

Due to the fact that ForceBeemon was actually smaller than me, I was riding with Takeru on Pegasmon. Yes, ForceBeemon is strong enough to carry me but I'd rather be on something a bit larger while flying above that mess.  
"See anything yet?" I asked Takeru. We had all split up in the air so we could get a wider search area and find the tower quicker.  
"Nothing yet… man, finding the tower in that dense jungle is going to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack."  
"It's down there somewhere; this was definitely an area under the Kaiser's control. The map was sure of it." Tentomon insisted.  
"No one is doubting you, Tentomon. It's just this is turning into quite the challenge." I assured him.  
"Takeru… up ahead… I think I see something…" Pegasmon turned our attention forward. We soon saw some sort of sharp flower objects spinning ahead of us… and they were coming our way!  
"Look out!" Takeru shouted as Pegasmon quickly turned out of the way. He dodged the first group of those things but another group was launched out of the jungle and heading for us. Something was clearly trying to bring us down.  
"More of them! Keep avoiding!" I warned. Pegasmon tried his best to try and dodge them all but there was just too many of them. Soon one of the flowers got lucky and exploded right underneath us which caused Pegasmon to get hurt and knocked us off causing us to fall into the jungle below.

The impact clearly blacked me out as I soon found myself coming back to consciousness. I tried to move my limbs but I couldn't. I almost began to panic as I thought I had broken everything or I had ended up paralyzed. Thankfully, it turned out as soon as I opened my eyes, my lack of movement was due to me being entangled in a whole bunch of vines. I looked over and saw that Takeru and Patamon were also tangled up near me but they were still unconscious.  
"Tentomon?" I loudly whispered. Whatever brought us down was clearly somewhere in this jungle and I didn't want to antagonize it or draw its attention to us… yet.  
"I'm here, Koushiro-han." I heard him whisper. I looked down to see that he was tangled up and he was actually slowly cutting his way through the vines that had us entangled. "You guys took a nasty fall. Thankfully, these vines kept you from having a very rough impact."  
"Very fortunate indeed. Can you get us out?"  
"Just a few more vines and you'll be free, then I'll have to get Takeru-han's off of him."  
"Okay, well, be careful. I don't know what brought us down and I get the feeling we don't want to encounter it without the others."  
"Speaking of others, you should message them, tell them you're all right and where you guys are."  
"I agree with you on messaging them, but there's no way we could be able to tell them where exactly we are in this mess." I sighed.

After a little while, Tentomon finally got Takeru out from his mess and safely brought us down to the jungle floor, albeit very slowly but it was a long drop so we had to take our time.  
"You doing okay, Patamon?" Takeru asked his partner who was resting on his head.  
"I'll be okay, but I just need a bit to rest." Takeru soon turned back to me.  
"So what do we do now, Koushiro-san?"  
"We clearly were getting close to somewhere we shouldn't be or else we wouldn't have been brought down like that." I theorized.  
"So you think the Dark Tower is somewhere around this area?"  
"Indeed. I believe that the tower is very close actually and I think it might be in that direction." I pointed north.  
"Are you sure? We really don't want to get lost in here."  
"No need to worry, I can just become ForceBeemon and find our way out." assured Tentomon.  
"Good idea, but let's save that for later. We're going to need you for whatever brought us down. I'm guessing that Digimon is guarding the Dark Tower." I believed.  
"Must be very powerful if it brought us down. Might be a Dark Spiral Digimon." Takeru guessed.  
"Let's just hope we can find it before it finds us."

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We walked through the hard jungle for what felt like an hour. It was tough due to how slow we had to go just to get through all the vines that were blocking our way. Soon, our D-Terminals began to beep, indicating that we had just gotten a message.  
"It's from Miyako-kun." Koushiro informed me. "Alright! She said they found the Dark Tower and just destroyed it!"  
"That's great!" I cheered.  
"So, did they find out what brought us down?" Tentomon asked.  
"Uh… she doesn't mention anything that was in the way of the tower." Koushiro admitted.  
"What? The tower was left unguarded?" I asked.  
"It appears so…"  
"Then… what took us down?" Suddenly, the whole ground began to rumbled as it sounded like something big was close to us. "Why did I have to say that?"

We turned around and saw a very large Digimon tear its way right through a bunch of trees before roaring like a mindless monster. It looked exactly like that one plant Digimon that Pinochimon killed with his gun back in his manor during our last adventure… of course; this one was clearly five times bigger.  
"Blossomon!" Patamon shouted. "A Perfect-Level Digimon that has great command over plant life. It's normally docile but cross it and watch out for its Spiral Flower; it can cut through anything!"  
"Well, it clearly isn't docile, look!" I pointed to one of his thorny vines and on it was an Evil Spiral. It's multiple smaller mouths flared out their teeth and then jumped right at us, trying to eat us!  
"Run!" Koushiro yelled. We turned around and got running as fast as we could while Blossomon was on our tail.  
"Spiral Flower!" Blossomon roared and those flowers that attacked us earlier flew right towards us.  
"Duck!" I cried as Koushiro and I hit the deck.

"It's no use." Koushiro admitted. "We can't outrun that thing and we can't contact the others right now. We have to fight it ourselves."  
"Then let's do it. Hopefully, we can create some sort of signal to attract the others to us." I theorized.  
"Digimental Up!" We shouted.  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!" "Tentomon, Armor-Evolve! Drilling Intelligence, FORCEBEEMON!" The two Digimon jumped up and got moving before another one of those mouths could take a bite out of them.  
"We've got to focus on taking out that Evil Spiral, ForceBeemon!" Pegasmon said.  
"Don't need to tell me twice! Swarm Strike!" ForceBeemon got close and quickly struck all the mouths to at least keep them distracted.  
"Shooting Star!" Pegasmon's meteors rained down across the controlled Digimon that caused it to try to cover itself with its vines.

However, this thing was clearly much quicker than expected as its vines shot out and seized all of us.  
"Takeru!" "Koushiro-han!" Our Digimon cried out for us. I could feel the vines wrapping around me and slowly tightening as Blossomon began laughing.  
"Beam Drill!" "Rodeo Gallop!" ForceBeemon and Pegasmon either used their drills or legs to knock away the vines on them which caused Blossomon to scream out in pain. It also served as a distraction as the vines around Koushiro and I loosened and we escaped.  
"Quick, while he's distracted!" Koushiro shouted to the Digimon.  
"Right!" They nodded and flew out towards the rampaging Digimon.  
"Needle Rain!" "Swarm Strike!" The two attacks spared on the Evil Spiral and caused it to shatter.  
"Yeah!" We cheered.

"You guys okay?" Daisuke asked as we reunited with the others by the TV. Blossomon had just simply wandered away once he had been freed so there was no need for us to stick around. We got on our Digimon and just flew back to the cliff.  
"We're fine… but boy, that one was a hard one." I admitted.  
"That Blossomon was something else entirely… almost reminded me of fighting MetalGreymon." Koushiro said.  
"Then let's just hope we don't encounter a Digimon like that when we take on in the coming days." Ken nodded.  
"Agreed."  
"Come on, we took out the tower so why do we get some lunch?" Daisuke turned around to walk towards the TV.  
"Sure. Thanks for offering to buy for us." I told him.  
"What? Wait a second…!"  
"That's real selfless of you, Daisuke-kun." Hikari smiled. Oh, you clever girl.  
"Ugh… yeah, of course I'll pay!" We all soon laughed as we headed back home.

Today was a tough one though, and it's only going to get harder…

* * *

Anyways, that one is handled. Again sorry for the shortness of it. Believe me, the next one will be much better because I was better planned with that one.

Take care, I'm gonna watch a playthrough of Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	22. Reclaiming History! Stingmon!

Sorry for another long delay, curse my short attention span! *Shakes fist*

Anyways, shout out to **blackshadow340** for the follow and **MadDogLucario96** and **DigimonAT0318** for the reviews.

I've delayed this long enough... so enjoy what's next.

* * *

 **Chapter 21: Reclaiming History! Stingmon!**

 _Digital World. July 24th, 2002. 1539 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Two more Airdramon to the left!" I shouted to Miyako who was riding on Holsmon. We were in quite the aerial fur ball today. Today was the day we would break through the dreaded Imperial Line and have a clear route to the areas where the Digimon Kaiser's secret base was believed to be hidden. All Chosen Children were in the Digital World today for this fight as we knew freeing an area with over seven Dark Towers in it was going to be difficult. One thing is for sure, the Kaiser was pulling out all the stops.  
"I see them! Ken-kun, you've got one behind you!" Miyako called out to Ken and Tetermon.  
"Not to worry! Tetermon!"  
"Precision Sting!" Tetermon fired out a stinger while still moving forward that struck the Airdramon in the face and sent him falling to the ground.  
"They almost done taking out that last tower?" Waibanmon questioned. He was referring to the others on the ground who were approaching the last tower.  
"Almost, we've just got to give them a bit more time." I told him. "Oh, great! Flymon on our six!"  
"I'll lose him." I held on tight as Waibanmon made some sharp turns and spins and he eventually lost the pursuit. "Was that a Split-S or an Immelmann, Ross?"  
"That's was just you making crazy spins and making me sick!"  
"Digmon and Fladramon have a clear shot for the tower!" Sora shouted as she looked down to the grassy fields below us.  
"Come on, you guys! Take it down!" Takeru cheered.  
"Big Crack!" "Fire Knuckle!" The two Digimon launched their attacks and the tower soon began toppling down.

"Yeah!" All of us cheered. With the destruction of the final tower, the Digimon that were under the control of the Evil Rings soon returned to normal, and we already took care of any Digimon with an Evil Spiral so it meant that we had won the day. Any Digimon still under the Kaiser's control like some of the Airdramon began fleeing north… back to the area where they were deployed from: the Kaiser's base. We were getting close, we could all feel it.  
"If where they're going is any indication, then I feel the Kaiser's headquarters is indeed in the area I suspected." Koushiro informed.  
"Yeah… we just need one more big push…" I said.  
"And then we will be able to end all this suffering once and for all." Hikari finished my sentence. All of us in the air nodded with her before turning around and heading for the nearest TV on our trip home.  
 _"_ _~O'er azure skies and emerald plains, where freedom and justice prevail!"_ I began to sing before Ken, Tetermon and Waibanmon soon joined in. _"With courage and strength, we'll fight to the end; for liberty in our land!"_ I couldn't help but laugh after that. Ken singing the USEA National Anthem from Ace Combat with me… I knew there was a reason I really liked him.

"Great work, everyone." Taichi gave us some words of encouragement once we got back to Chosen HQ. "Today was a tough one for all of us but with that area now freed, we can now focus on trying to find where the Kaiser is hiding and end this war once and for all."  
"It's not going to be easy." Iori said.  
"Nor will it be easy to fight him and defeat him once we do find him." Yamato admitted.  
"You kidding? We'll have him crying so fast once we kick his ass." bragged Daisuke.  
"I think feeling overconfident about facing him is a bad idea." Mimi warned.  
"Agreed, Daisuke-kun. We have no idea what kind of tricks he still has up his sleeve." Takeru added.  
"Come on, as long as we're all together, we can't lose." Daisuke claimed, which explained his reasoning on why he was feeling pretty cocky. I couldn't help but kinda of agree with him about that. As long as we stay together, we should be fine. I mean, it's not like the Dark Masters or Apoclymon, the Kaiser is nowhere as strong as them. All we have to do is get through his controlled Digimon guards and all that remains is kid with delusions of grandeur. Delusions that will be shattered when his face meets my fist.

"Everyone should go home right now and get a good night's sleep; I think we've earned it. Besides, I've got studying to do." Jou said.  
"Really?" "Jeez…" "Come on, man!" We all playfully joked with him as we all started heading out.  
"So, Ross… you all ready for our date tomorrow?" Mimi asked me.  
"You're kidding? I wouldn't miss it." I told her. Hard to believe I asked her out a month ago and only now we're going on a date. All the fighting kinda distracted me from planning it out with her but now that had all been taken care of. We were going to go to a local restaurant tomorrow night; that way, in case there's trouble in the Digital World, it can be handled before.  
"Well, I hope you two have a good day tomorrow. It's gonna be a pretty solemn day for me and my parents." Ken stated as he walked past us.  
"What's the problem, Ken-kun?" Mimi wondered.  
"Tomorrow is the twenty-fifth… which is Osamu's birthday…" Ah, that makes sense. We didn't say anything after he said that. He then quickly put on an apologetic smile. "Sorry, not your problem. Don't let my mood ruin yours. See you all tomorrow." He then hopped on his bike and headed back to Tamachi.

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. July 25th, 2002. 0845 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. - Ken Ichijouji_

I got up and ready early before I was planning to head out to help the others in the Digital World. After what happened yesterday, we needed to find the Kaiser's headquarters soon before we end up reaching our limit. I began walking into the hall with Wormmon quietly placed in my duffel bag before I ended up hearing some light sobbing. I stepped back and looked into the living room where I saw Mom with her hands in her face as she was crying. I sighed. Sometimes I wonder if I should just tell them the truth… but I keep telling myself that it would probably make it worse. Better to let them think that Osamu just ran away from home and is missing rather than tell them that he's in the Digital World and a maniac. But I wonder sometimes… Osamu… the one I remember… is he still out there? Is the Kaiser just some sort of personality that's taken him over? Or was he always this twisted?

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Are you sure about that?" Takeru asked me. When we had returned to the Chosen HQ this morning, we found that the Kaiser had given us a bit of a gift for what we did to him yesterday.  
"No doubt about it. There are three towers in an all too familiar place." I told him as I looked at the screen.  
"Hard to believe that he's extended his reach out that far…"  
"I'm more worried about our friends who are still there." Hikari was concerned and for good reason.  
"What's going on?" Ken questioned as he walked in.  
"The Kaiser has been a bit busy last night." Miyako explained. "He's placed a bunch of towers across the Digital World. Clearly, this has to be a response to what we did yesterday."  
"It's probably meant to distract us. To keep us from searching for his headquarters… which means Koushiro-san was right. The Kaiser has to be hiding somewhere around there." Iori said.  
"All the more reason to prove that he's scared of us. He knows he's in trouble and is now doing all this just to buy himself some time." Daisuke claimed.  
"I don't know if he's scared. I somewhat get the feeling he's less worried about us and more about just giving himself more time to finish what he's been working on." I feared. "What I do know is… we need to free this location now." I pointed to the screen.

"What's the big deal with this place? It just seems like a large island." Miyako observed.  
"It's more than just a large island. That's File Island." Takeru told the others. "It was where we first ended up in the Digital World and met our Digimon." The others slowly came to an understanding about the importance of the island.  
"We've got a lot of old friends there, and I sure don't want them to suffer for much longer." said Hikari.  
"Well what are we waiting for? You heard Hikari-chan! We've got some Digimon to save!" Daisuke shouted. Some of us just shook our heads before heading over to the computer.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" Miyako shouted.

Once the light died down, we found ourselves in the middle of a forest, but it was for sure on File Island.  
"Alright, let's get to work. Now, judging from the map, we have three towers to deal with. We got to hit these things fast to prevent Herr Kaiser from digging in. First one is near Toy Town, Hikari, Miyako-kun, you two handle that one." I ordered.  
"Right." The girls nodded and took off for Toy Town. Hopefully, Monzaemon hasn't fallen victim to an Evil Spiral.  
"Takeru-kun, take Daisuke-kun and Iori-kun to the Gear Savannah and deal with that tower there."  
"On it." They said. Soon, the guys also headed out leaving Ken and I with our Digimon.  
"What about me?" Ken asked.  
"You're sticking with me. There's a tower at the end of a canyon right by us. We fly hard and fast through it, we can catch the Kaiser off guard. That tower is also near a village that I especially don't want the Kaiser touching."  
"Got it, lead the way."

Nothing beats the feeling of having the wind blow through your hair as you soar at high speeds. Tetermon and Waibanmon were having a bit of a friendly race through the canyon when Waibanmon spotted a familiar area.  
"Hey, Ross! Down there!" I looked down and saw the small creek in the canyon. "That was when I first evolved into Growmon."  
"And perfect timing too I might add, I was a goner at that moment."  
"From the stories you guys have told, I can see why you are so headstrong about dealing with the Kaiser today." Ken observed.  
"We wouldn't be the people we were today if it wasn't for our first adventures on File Island. The lessons we learned here helped prepare us for the much harder villains that we later faced."  
"Hey, guys?" Tetermon interrupted. "I don't mean to interrupt the memories but we've got trouble up ahead!" We looked forward to see five Airdramon coming towards us down the canyon.  
"Tally-ho, got a heads up on some bandits! Break and engage!" I shouted.  
"Copy, Rogue Leader!" teased Ken.

I think we're probably getting better at fighting the Kaiser. Those Airdramon were easily dealt with in short order. Now there was almost nothing standing in between us and the tower… of course, sometimes fate likes to play a bit of a joke, because the guardian of the tower was an old friend of ours. Once more, poor Raptordramon was under the influence of a vile object.  
"It's Raptordramon!" Waibanmon alerted. "He was under the control of Devimon in our last adventures. I finally evolved into Growmon and defeated him that day."  
"Looks like history is repeating itself, then." Tetermon noticed. Both our Digimon broke into two different directions so Raptordramon couldn't get a bead on us. However, it looked like he may had learned some new tricks as he took off and began chasing Ken and Tetermon.  
"Oh, shoot! He's on us!" Ken cried.  
"Not for long! Precision Sting!" Just like yesterday, Tetermon launched a stinger that hit Raptordramon in the face which threw him off course and crashing into the forest below, leaving Waibanmon clear to take out the tower.  
"Finish it, Waibanmon!" I ordered.  
"Steel Swipe!" Waibanmon dived on the tower, slicing it and causing it to topple over. Practically just another day in the office.

"You'd think I'd not fall for that same trick twice." Raptordramon groaned when we regrouped with him. "I mean, being a slave to Devimon was once too many, I didn't need to serve the Digimon Kaiser as well."  
"Well, you don't need to worry about all that. I think we've shown the Kaiser that File Island is off limits to him." Guilmon claimed.  
"Looks like the others took care of their towers. File Island has been freed." Ken told us.  
"And the Kaiser didn't even keep it before lunch. That'll probably make him mad, Ken-chan." Wormmon believed.  
"You may be right. So, shall we regroup with the others, Ross-san?"  
"Not yet… there's one place I want to check out. I was hoping that it wasn't affected by all this." I explained.  
"The Kaiser showed up not too long ago so I think the village is safe." Raptordramon informed. "I'm going to check out the surrounding area; help with clearing up some of the mess."  
"Alright, good luck. Come on, Ken-kun. You're gonna want to see this."

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Ross said I wasn't going to believe what I saw and he was right. This village had buildings made out of baby blocks, the ground was like a giant trampoline, and there were baby cradles everywhere.  
"What is this place?" I asked.  
"This is the Village of Beginnings. It's the place where all Digimon are born and reborn when they're killed." Ross explained.  
"All Digimon are born here?"  
"That's right. Digimon start out as eggs here and hatch. Speaking of which… Hey, Elecmon!" Guilmon yelled out.  
"Elecmon?"  
"He's the caretaker of this place. When we were all separated by Devimon, Takeru and I ended up finding this place. It was also the first place restored when Apoclymon and the Dark Masters were finally defeated." Ross gave me a quick history lesson.  
"Come on, Wormmon. Let's see if we can go find him." Guilmon motioned.  
"Right behind you." The two of them soon walked off.

"I'm just glad the Kaiser didn't get this place. Putting Evil Rings on Baby-Level Digimon… it's… it's completely unforgivable." Ross said as he sat down. I took a seat next to him. "You know… all these memories reminded me of something. You having any luck with your head?" Ross referred to my missing memories of the Digital World. I shook my head.  
"No… I'm sorry. I still can't seem to remember anything. All I know is that I went to the Digital World, I met Wormmon, and with everything going on, I'm fairly certain that Onii-san came with me but I can't recall. It's all still a haze in my mind."  
"I still can't believe that he's the Kaiser. The two times I talked to him, he seemed all…"  
"All what?"  
"Normal. That's the best way I can think to describe it. Certainly not a crazed psycho who's trying to take over the Digital World and be a vile dictator."  
"If I have to be honest with you, Ross-san… I've been kinda holding back."  
"Holding back?"  
"I haven't been fully on point when it comes to fighting him. I mean, I fully understand we need to defeat him but…"  
"You just can't trust yourself to take him on face to face." I nodded in agreement with Ross said.

"You want to hear something crazy? I actually…" I sighed. I guess I might as well tell him the truth. "I know I said that recently we weren't getting along before discovering that Osamu was the Kaiser… but things were worse than that sometime before."  
"What do you mean?"  
"When we were younger… Osamu was the only smart one in the family; I was just regular old Ken. See, I always looked up to Osamu because he was always able to do anything. I told this part of the story to Miyako-san, but there was a time when we were young and we blew bubbles and I was able to blow bigger ones than him because I was more kind and gentler with the blowing bubbles. I was proud that I finally did something better than Osamu."  
"Because you were kind? Boy, that fits you well."  
"I know… but…" I sighed once more. "Osamu was still better at other things… and it didn't take long for others to realized that."  
"Uh-oh. I think I got an idea about what you're going to say."

"Look, I love my parents, I really do… but when the media and the neighbors all started to say all these amazing things about Osamu… it went to their heads. Suddenly, Onii-san could no wrong… he was just too perfect. And that meant that something had to give… and what was given was lack of attention. Mom and Dad started paying less attention to me; selfish, I know how it sounds, but I was just a little kid. I was practically becoming a forgotten child, and things… soon got dark."  
"Jealousy is unbecoming of all of us."  
"I know. The more and more Mom and Dad gave their attention to Osamu and ignored me slowly built up a dark feeling inside of me. I soon began to grow to resent Osamu… to despise him. And then the real dark thoughts began to show up. An idea began to grow in my mind. Mom and Dad paid all of their attention to Osamu and not to me… so what if Osamu wasn't around? I wished that he would just disappear. Of course… you can understand the context with all that."  
"You wanted him dead." Ross took a long pause. "Jesus. I had a feeling it was bad, but I didn't expect that.

"Yeah… I had these feelings even on the day we met you… when you ended up saving our lives."  
"I'm sure it would've been fine, you guys probably would've avoided it."  
"I get the feeling that we wouldn't. Anyways, we met and talked and did all that but I remember that piece of advice you gave me."  
"Ah, I remember. I told you that you shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind. Not to be all bottled up, which is actually something you still need to do today. You don't need to be so withdrawn, you know? Be a bit more forward and outgoing."  
"Yeah, that's always been a problem of mine. That day Osamu revealed himself to be the Kaiser, he said when threatening to feed the others to Deltamon 'You're not worthy of friends… Just like it's always been…'"

"There's a story to that?"  
"I don't have many friends… most of the time I feel like I've been used. Most guys in my school only want to be my friend because I'm good at school work so they want me to do their work or something. The girls chase me because I'm famous on the local news and want the fame too."  
"Gold digging is still alive and well. Bunch of Anna Nicole Smiths by the sound of it."  
"Uh… yeah." I have no idea who that is. "The only other people I can think of is my soccer team, but I get the feeling that if I wasn't amazing, they'd probably not care."  
"Well, you know…"  
"You don't need to say it, Ross-san. You guys are true friends to me. You guys don't really care who I am to the outside world, but rather the real me." He gave me a pat on the back.  
"Nice to hear that."

"But like I was saying before, when you gave me that advice, I took it to heart… and that's what's confusing me about all this."  
"How come?"  
"See, I think there might be something wrong with my brother. I know, I know, but I mean, I was shocked about all his actions as the Kaiser considering what he did for me. It's like… I feel he's got some sort of split personality or something, that the Kaiser has taken full control but that my brother is still somewhere inside."  
"What did he do for you?"  
"A few weeks after we met… something happened in his room when I was in there and I just snapped. I let it all out, I told him how I felt ignored, how I was jealous; just everything. And you want to know what he did? He said nothing. He waited until Mom and Dad got home, let them get comfortable… and then he let loose on them. That was the only time I had ever seen calm, collected Onii-san so angry. He was screaming and yelling at Mom and Dad about my feelings and how they should be ashamed for practically making me feel like I didn't exist. At the time I felt so alone in the world… my brother came in… and defended me."

"Wow… so after that, that's when things got better for the time?"  
"Yeah, Mom and Dad apologized and things have been fine with them ever since. As for Onii-san and me, we got closer than we had in a long time. It was shortly after that when my own intellect began showing…"  
"And the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi were born."  
"Yeah… that day when Osamu stood up for me, all those dark feelings just suddenly vanished and never returned. And that's why I'm so hesitant to truly fight him, because I believe that Osamu is still out there… somewhere. You know… I've been thinking… if he never defended me or maybe if he had been hit by that car… I think there would've been a chance that I would've ended up being the Kaiser."  
"What!? You? The Kaiser? No way! I couldn't see that!"  
"Who knows."  
"Hey, thanks for telling me all this, Ken-kun. I really appreciate it." He gave me a pat on the back.  
"You're welcome, Ross-san."

Our conversation was soon interrupted when the ground suddenly began to shake.  
"What the?" "What is that?" We said. We then began hearing screams coming towards us and soon saw Guilmon and Wormmon with panicked looks on their faces as they ran back to us.  
"Run! It's…!" They screamed before they were silenced by a large beast-man Digimon that landed in front of us.  
"Leomon!" Ross shouted. Sounded like they know him… the only problem was… he had an Evil Spiral on his arm.  
"The Digimon Kaiser's orders… exterminate… the false Chosen Children." The lion-man growled.  
"Ken-kun! Run!" Ross ordered. "Guilmon!"  
"Right! Guilmon, Evolve! GROWMON!" Growmon moved in front of Leomon and began grappling with him. "Come on, Leomon; don't make me do this again!" I don't know exactly what had happened before but Leomon quickly overpowered Growmon and threw him to the ground.

"Grrr… just like last time." Ross growled.  
"What?" I asked.  
"Last time, Leomon was under the influence of Devimon's Black Gears and tried to kill Takeru and I here. We couldn't hold him off but thankfully the others arrived in time and we discovered the power of our Digivices which helped free him… something that I don't think will work this time."  
"Hang on, Growmon!" Wormmon jumped forward to assist.  
"Wait, Wormmon!" I tried to chase after him while Ross shouted for us to stop. I foolishly followed and got too close to Leomon. With Growmon pinned down, Leomon turned his sights to me.  
"Juuouken!" The attack flew towards me and all time just stopped. Suddenly, Wormmon appeared in front of me and took the attack full force. He was then blown back into my arms while Growmon got back up and tackled Leomon.  
"Wormmon!" I cried as I held him in my arms. Damnit! This is my fault! He jumped in the way to save me! What happened next I really can't understand but maybe because of the situation that happened and the way I was holding Wormmon… many of my previously foggy memories soon became clear.

 _Digital World. Date Unknown. Time Unknown._

I began to remember that I was walking in the desert with Wormmon. And not just him, but Osamu as well and his Digimon partner, Monodramon. Things were a bit too quite for our liking when all of a sudden a Gazimon jumped out of the sand to ambush us.  
"Ken-chan, watch out!" Wormmon jumped in the way and both Digimon tackled each other. The Gazimon turned tail and ran while Wormmon laid on the ground.  
"Wormmon!" I picked him up. "Wormmon… Wormmon!"  
"I'm okay… that was nothing."  
"Wormmon…"  
"I'm really glad I'm your Digimon partner, Ken-chan… Because you're so kind…"  
"Kind?"  
 _"You're the best at blowing bubbles because you blow kindly."_ I recalled Osamu's words that day I blew bigger bubbles than him.  
"But kindness alone isn't enough. You have to become stronger, or…"  
"Or…?"  
"Or you'll be overwhelmed by your own kindness. Ken-chan… The Digivice you have is yours." I remembered expressing my doubts about being a Chosen Child, that the Digivice wasn't for a someone who wasn't special like me. "Not anyone else's, just yours. Just like you heart is yours, don't forget that."

 _Village of Beginnings, Digital World. July 25th, 2002. 1153 Hours._

"Wormmon!" I shouted as loud as I could.  
"Ugh… are you okay, Ken-chan?" I heard Wormmon groan in pain.  
"Wormmon! I'm sorry!"  
"Don't be, Ken-chan. I'll always be here to protect you." I sighed in relief. We then looked up to see Leomon overpowering Growmon once more. "He needs help, now."  
"And I know how. Wormmon, much of that fog in my mind has cleared."  
"Me too." He replied.  
"Then let's say hello to an old friend!"  
"Wormmon, Evolve! STINGMON!"

Stingmon… how long has it been? He was a unique looking Digimon as he was a humanoid insect but he packed quite the punch.  
"Go get him, Stingmon!"  
"Right!" Stingmon took off and he moved even faster than Tetermon ever could. Leomon was about to strike his sword down on Growmon but soon found himself tackled and picked up and lifted him into the sky.  
"Get rid of the Evil Spiral, you guys!" Ross called out. Stingmon nodded in understanding and let Leomon go. He fell to the ground and left a large crater where he landed. He clearly was immobilized for a moment which was all the time we needed.  
"Spiking Finish!" One of the sharp points above Stingmon's hands shot forward and glowed purple and he dived on Leomon where he stabbed his stinger right into the Evil Spiral; destroying it!

"Way to go, Stingmon!" I cheered.  
"Man… I didn't know Wormmon had it in him." Ross was impressed.  
"I actually didn't either until a minute ago. Those memories flooded in at the best possible time."  
"So… you remember everything now?"  
"No… there's still a fog on a few more of them but I remember much of my original journey through the Digital World. And I remember Osamu being the person I thought he was."  
"All the more reason for you to try and save him…"  
"He's my brother… I have to try."

"Ugh… the darkness has faded." Leomon slowly got back up.  
"Whoa, whoa, take it easy, Leomon. Those Evil Spirals really drain you." Ross tried to slow him down.  
"Thanks for the warning. First Devimon and now the Digimon Kaiser… the forces of darkness seem to like to play the same tricks."  
"Yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same." Guilmon admitted.  
"Thank you for all that you've done, Chosen Children. You've continued to give the Digital World a debt it can never truly pay."  
"It's no problem, Leomon. We're always happy to help, right, Wormmon?" I said as I looked down to him in my arms.  
"Right, Ken-chan!"  
"Besides, I'm sure Jou-san, Mimi-kun and the others will all be happy to see you again." Ross smiled. However his smile soon faded. "Oh, shoot! I've got to go!"  
"Where?" I asked.  
"My date! I got to get ready!"  
"It's a little early, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to be prepared." He turned around and began walking towards the nearest TV where we would regroup with the others. "Try not to blow it!" I teased. He turned around and gave me a glare.  
"Remember how I said you shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind? Turn that down just a notch there." I laughed when he said that and after a moment so did he. I truly am thankfully for my friends. Now, if I can just get back my brother…

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. July 25th, 2002. 1923 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

I walked Mimi back to her home like a true gentleman after we finished our date. I have to say that it went practically without a hitch. We laughed and had a good time at dinner; I say that is what constitutes a great date.  
"I had a really fun time tonight." Mimi said.  
"Really? I was completely nervous the entire time." I admitted which made her laugh.  
"Well, you shouldn't be, you were great." We were soon right outside her apartment door. "Would you like to come in? Hang out for little while longer?"  
"No thank you. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather go on a few more dates before going inside, you know?"  
"Southern Charm, right?" She laughed once more. "Well, alright, I'll see you around. Thank you for tonight." She opened the door before she turned around. "I almost forgot!" She gave me a peck on the lips. "Good night." She said as she closed the door, leaving me outside still in shock from the kiss. After a moment, I recomposed myself and walked for home… with the biggest grin on my face before I began singing.

"~ _Because your kiss, you kiss is on my list! Because you kiss, you kiss in on my list! Because your kiss is on my list of the best things in life…"_

* * *

I'm a sucker for Hall and Oates, I can't help it. Better than most of the crap on the radio these days.

So yeah, Ken's memories are coming back and Wormmon evolved into Stingmon once more.

Next chapter we get right back into the show. Take care everyone.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	23. Ghost in the Machine!

Hello, and welcome to the chapter that really makes you feel bad at the end. Apologizes, I was editing this when my mother came in and told me _**The Mummy**_ (The fun 1999 film) was on TV so I had to postpone the editing.

Got a lot of reviews from the last one, nice to get the great feedback. Thanks **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , **God of the Challenge** , and **WolfDragon**.

Now, let's get to the memories... and the warning.

* * *

 **Chapter 22: Ghost in the Machine! Message from Beyond!**

 _Fuji TV Building, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. July 30th, 2002. 1956 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

It was another quiet night at the Fuji TV building. Most of the employees were going about their own business, just cranking out the next program or producing the next episode of their shows or a new series. One of the people working late was Hiroaki Ishida's old co-worker Chioka who had moved up in the station. He was now the series producer and director of an upcoming series called Strange World: Believe it or Not. He looked at the computer screen with his editor, a man by the name of Shigeru.

"Ah, there! Place that one after the wide shot." Chioka leaned back in his chair.  
"Uh… Chioka-chan, did you purify yourself after you shot this?" Shigeru asked.  
"Uh, nope. What for?"  
"Well, weird things often happen with these mystery shows…"  
"Weird things?" Chioka pulled out a cigarette and began lighting it.  
"Like ghosts appearing on the tape or stuff like that."  
"Don't get all superstitious on me, it's just entertainment. If there are any ghosts, it's because we put them there. Most of the stuff we shot was pretty boring anyways."  
"Do you feel any guilt about misleading others with that kind of action?"  
"Please, most people know it's just a show." Chioka dismissed the concerns.  
"If you say so…"  
"Gah!" Chioka exclaimed which caused his cigarette to fall out.  
"What is it?" Both men looked closely at the screen and soon saw a dark shadow on the screen which chilled them to the bone.

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. July 31st, 2002. 1653 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Another day, another successful attack on a Dark Tower. However, we still had no sign of where the Kaiser's headquarters is, but some of the older children believe that we're getting close. Right now, we had a bigger problem.  
"I'm starving!" Chibimon shouted. Our problem was dealing with very hungry Digimon.  
"We just got home, and you're already hungry?" Hikari chuckled.  
"I can't help it! I'm just really hungry!"  
"Well, we got another area back today, so let's celebrate!" insisted Takeru.  
"Bingo! I just got a new game." I exclaimed. "Why don't you come to my place?"  
"What, what? What did you get?" Daisuke demanded.  
"Iori-kun, what's wrong?" asked Ken.  
"I was thinking that we don't really know what the Digimon Kaiser is up to…" Iori expressed the concern that we all had.  
"Now that you mention it, yeah…" Takeru agreed. "He's taking over new areas, but he hasn't done anything else…"  
"Don't worry about that! We have the advantage." Daisuke believed. I nodded in agreement.

"I had heard a rumor coming out of your school, but starting tomorrow, the computer lab is going to be used, correct?" Ken recalled something he heard.  
"Ah, that's right! It's going to be used for a summer computer class for the lower grades." Takeru informed.  
"Eh? I never heard that!" Daisuke argued.  
"Well, good thing we moved a while back. Somehow I get the feeling that Koushiro-san and Ross-san may have predicted this." I said. "I'd be pretty concerned if we couldn't go to the Digital World tomorrow."  
"Ah, well… We already have plans for tomorrow anyway, so we can't come here." explained Takeru.  
"We? Who's 'we'?" asked Daisuke.  
"Me and Takeru-kun." Hikari walked over which caused Daisuke to have a surprised and shattered look on his face.  
"Wh-wh-what? I-is it a d-d-d-date…?"  
"Nothing like that…" She laughed. She then pulled out a day planner that had an important note next to August 1st.

"One eighth plan? What's that?" Daisuke wondered.  
"It's the August First Plan. If you're going to read it like that, wouldn't it be the 'eight oneths plan'?" Takeru somewhat teased him.  
"Yes, indeed." Iori nodded before we all chuckled.  
"What, I'm bad at fractions!" Daisuke turned his back on us.  
"Do you need a tutor?" Ken asked.  
"I'm fine!"  
"Why don't you all come along?" Takeru invited.  
"On your date?" Daisuke quickly turned back around.  
"It's not that!" Hikari nervously laughed.  
"Then, what?"

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 1st, 2002. 1101 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"August first is three years to the day when all of this truly started." Takeru explained to us when we met up at Daiba Park.  
"Ah, I get it… that's when Taichi-san and the others went to the Digital World for this first time, right?" Iori figured it out.  
"I stayed at home, though… I wasn't feeling well so I missed camp where the others first met each other and ended up being transported to the Digital World." Hikari informed.  
"Today was the first time Takeru and I met." Patamon said.  
"I see…" Miyako nodded.  
"Hey!" A voice cried out.  
"It's Taichi-san and the others!" I pointed. We turned and saw the others and their Digimon up the hill waving at us.  
"So you all came too." Taichi said as he took a seat next to us.  
"Yeah."  
"How is everyone doing right now?" Jou asked.  
"We're doing fine, Jou-san." Ken informed.  
"I'm kinda surprised that everyone is here." Iori looked around.  
"It's our anniversary of our Digimon adventures; do you think we'd miss this?" Ross smirked.

For the next hour, they began telling their stories to the rest of us newer kids. We already knew a good chunk of what had happened but final pieces had been placed so now we pretty much knew what had happened. We were definitely quite surprised by what they told us. All the struggles they went through, I could hardly imagine. Now I kinda feel bad because it feels like we've kinda got it off easy, what with not having to deal with really powerful and deadly Digimon as well as the fact that we get to come home every night.  
"So that's what happened? I can't believe it!" "Mimi-oneesama, I knew you're something else!" "I see… so that's why Takeru-san and Hikari-san are here now." "Hard to believe I was this close to you guys and didn't realize it." We said.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"There it is again!" Shigeru pointed to the screen. He reminded the recording and the shadow changed places from where it was before.  
"It changed again!" Chioka shouted.  
"However you think about it, it's weird! If it was recorded on tape… there's no way it can change every time we play it!"  
"And this is my first job as director…" It wasn't just his show that was being affected. The shadow was soon appearing on multiple screens throughout the entire building, much to the confusion and worry of many of the employees.  
"Same here…" Shigeru observed.  
"It's not just our show."  
"The whole station is…"  
"The station is… what?"  
"It's haunted."  
"Don't be stupid! This place just got rebuilt! All the equipment is new… So… so…"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"What's wrong with you four?" Mimi asked us as we looked out across the bay under the Rainbow Bridge.  
"I… I just feel overwhelmed after hearing so many stories." I told them.  
"It's like my stomach is full…" Miyako added.  
"I don't think I can take in any more." Daisuke believed.  
"I guess we're just feeling somewhat burdened by the idea of trying to live up to you guys after what you had done." Ken said what we were all thinking.  
"You're not that weak, are you?" Sora playfully teased.  
"You guys have been doing well so far." Taichi assured us.  
"I guess…" sighed Daisuke.  
"Will you be alright?" Yamato wondered.  
"Maybe not…" Miyako feared.  
"Just hang in there!" Jou gave Daisuke a pat on the back and he nearly fell over the rope wire and into the bay causing all of us to laugh.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"I see… it's still as messy as I left it." I looked around Dad and Yamato's apartment and saw it was still the same mess as when I saw it a few months ago.  
"Can't be helped, two guys are living here." Yamato gave a quick excuse.  
"And one Digimon." Gabumon chimed in. I kneeled down, placed down Patamon so he and Gabumon could hang out with each other, and picked up a few shirts.  
"I can help with the laundry…"  
"Don't worry about that!" Yamato took the shirts away. "You say the same thing every time you stay here for the night."  
"Eh? Really?" How is it I don't recall?  
"I remember thinking that Mom always did everything for you. Your house is always clean; your clothes are always washed… Every day, when you get home, a meal is ready…"  
"Sorry… I never thought about that."

"It's fine… you don't have to worry about that stuff. Maybe we should get someone to do some tidying up around here."  
"Mom?"  
"She'd kill me!" My mind drifted to the thought of what would've happened to all of us had Mom and Dad stayed together. Would we even be the same people? "What do you want to eat?" Yamato brought me back to reality. "Though I'm not much of a cook, so don't expect much."  
"Whatever is fine, as long as it's a meal cooked by my brother." Yamato soon had a smirk on his face.  
"Oh, yeah? Get ready." That doesn't sound good.

Oh, gods! That's hot! Downed the whole meal and now I have to drink like several glasses of water just to cool my mouth.  
"Th-thanks for the meal!" I exasperated all the while Yamato was giggling. "Is this what Dad eats all the time?"  
"No, today it was a special dinner for our guest Takeru-sama!" Figures, I should've known considering anytime I'm over for the night, we tend to eat take-out.  
"Special…? Normal was fine…"  
"I can't do that. This only happens once a year. It's like Tanabata, where Orihime and Hikoboshi meet once a year."  
"If Orihime and Hikoboshi heard you, they'd be angry…"

We soon heard the front door open up which meant that Dad was finally home.  
"Welcome home!" I announced as Dad walked into the kitchen.  
"Oh, you're here… so it was today?"  
"What, you forgot?" Yamato questioned.  
"No, no, no, that's right; it's today… today…" Boy, Dad seems really out of it.  
"What? Did something happen?" I asked.  
"No, nothing…" He sighed.  
"What's with that eerie sigh?" Yamato wondered.  
"Eerie? Exactly, that's just how it is… I don't want to think about it, but I keep imagining these bizarre things…"  
"What are you talking about?" Dad got up out of the chair.  
"When you see someone walking across the hallway like this… what do you think?"  
"Well… where is he going, or something." I said.  
"Yeah, you'd think that. So then, you watch him, wondering where he's going. And then…"  
"And then?" questioned Yamato.  
"The person that was in the hallway just now… isn't there anymore."

"So you thought you saw a person, but you were just seeing things?"  
"Yeah, seeing things… I wish. Then, how about this? During editing, there's an image that shouldn't be there."  
"Maybe no one noticed it when filming?" Yamato suggested.  
"Really? You think so?"  
"Yeah, what else…" I said.  
"Yeah… That should be it…"  
"Wait a second, are you suggesting that you've been seeing a ghost at the station?"  
"That's exactly it. Now if one or two people had seen it, we could dismiss that as someone was just seeing things. But with ten or twenty people… hell, almost half the building now…" I looked over to the table and saw a Sony MD player.  
"Dad, what's in that MD?"  
"Ah, Sakurada made me a copy of a sutra."  
"A sutra?" Yamato and I questioned.  
"Well, since it's a ghost, we thought it'd help. But it's not good…"  
"How stupid…" Yamato dismissed everything and walked away.  
"Eh, don't mind him, Dad. Uh, I'm gonna go take a bath." I got up to go to the bathroom.  
"SPICY! TOO SPICY!" I heard Dad scream. Guess he tried Yamato's dish.

 _Fuji TV Building, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 2nd, 2002. 0931 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Okay, moment of truth this time…" Shigeru muttered as he hit the play button on the computer. Both he and Chioka watched the screen very closely as they kept their eyes peeled for the mysterious shadow. After a few moments, the shadow appeared and flew across the screen.  
"Not again!" cursed Chioka.  
"At this rate, we'll get nothing done! This airs the day after tomorrow…"  
"What are you on about? We can't air it like this!"  
"Gah! What are we going to do!?"  
"And this is my first job as director…" Chioka began to cry. "All this hard work for nothing!"  
"Hey, guys, you're never gonna believe this!" A random employee ran in.  
"What? What happened?" Shigeru asked.  
"Well, we decided to run a bit of an experiment with this whole shadow thing… and well, we broadcasted a show out to the public and it turns out that the shadow didn't appear on any of the screens outside the building. To the rest of the country, these shows are normal."  
"Really? So then it really does mean that this place is haunted…"  
"Oh, don't you start!" Chioka shouted.

"Should I play this?" Sakurada walked in with a MD player.  
"Huh?"  
"The sutra."  
"You bring an MD to listen to that…" growled Chioka. Shigeru sighed and got up out of his chair.  
"At this point, we should try anything." They place the boom box down and hit the play button. After a few moments, nothing was happening. "Huh? There's no sound. Is it broken?"  
"That's impossible… I just bought this MD player." Suddenly, the sound of a groan began to fill their ears.  
"Uh… that's a really weird sutra…"  
"N-no… that voice isn't coming from this…" Chioka and Shigeru's eyes widened.  
"Th-then, what…?" Chioka stuttered.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Yay, Tokyo Tower!" Mimi cheered. "Long time no see." What does she mean by that? Is she referring to not being here in the past few months or something?  
"It's back to normal as well." Sora noticed.  
"It melted once, right?" I recalled the story.  
"All of Tokyo was in chaos back then!" Mimi informed.  
"I didn't know it was because of the Digimon from the Digital World…"  
"Vamdemon was very determined to locate Hikari and conquer the human world." Piyomon spoke up from her disguise.  
"And DeathMeramon was quite the hot head here at Tokyo Tower." Palmon added.  
"But you still defeated them all the same?" Poromon said. Both Digimon nodded.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Shibuya's as crowed as always, huh?" Yamato observed as we walked through the busy crowds of the area. It's always been said that Shibuya is the East's answer to Times Square or Piccadilly, and I couldn't agree more with that.  
"Ah, here…" I looked over to a storefront. In the store window, I saw Pumpmon and Gotsumon playing around with clothes in the window like they did three years ago. It seems Yamato and Gabumon were seeing the same thing.  
"They were good guys…" Yamato muttered. I sadly nodded. They didn't deserve their fate… but at least their sprits should be at peace ever since we killed Vamdemon.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Um… since we're all here, I'd like to try something." Koushiro told us as we sat in Taichi and Ross's bedroom.  
"Eh? What is it?" Daisuke asked.  
"It's about the Digital Gate."  
"Gate? The one we use to go to the Digital World?" Hikari wondered.  
"Yes. We've always used the PC that was in the computer room before we moved it to our headquarters as our transport to the Digital World… But I've been thinking that we may be able to open the gate from somewhere else."  
"How do you do that? Can you even do something like that?" Iori questioned.  
"And more importantly, you mean to tell me that I nearly broke my back for nothing?" Takeo cried.  
"You just had to lift a computer on a rolling cart and I helped you that day!" Ross shouted at him.  
"And still wasn't paid!"  
"You volunteered!" I'm pretty sure they were just kidding considering the smirks on their faces.

"Can we please get back to my theory?" Koushiro interrupted. The two of them quieted down. "Now… I'm not entirely sure that we can do that, I was just thinking we might."  
"What's your point, Koushiro?" Taichi slid closer to him on his rolling chair.  
"In other words, I don't think that computer has some sort of power to open the gate. What opens the gate is the D-3 that everyone has."  
"You sure? How did you get this idea?" I asked.  
"Well, first of all, I've noticed before, but I wasn't sure so I didn't say anything. But with all the fighting, it perhaps could be more efficient if we didn't even need to meet up at the headquarters but rather go directly to the Digital World. The second part is… well, it's related to Osamu… he clearly didn't use our computer to go the Digital World so that's what makes me think that it's not the computer but rather the D-3 that creates and opens the gate." I can see why he was hesitant to say that second part, but he does sound right about that.

"I see… but then, where can we go to the Digital World from?" Taichi wondered.  
"Well, it's quite simple. Anywhere. Here."  
"Here?"  
"As long as we have a computer…" Koushiro pointed to Taichi and Ross's computer. "No, even without a computer, we may be able to go to the Digital World with the D-3 alone." We all were surprised by this revelation. "Daisuke-kun, please try it out."  
"M-me?"  
"You're the first to receive a D-3; most of the rest of us had Digivices that evolved into D-3s which is why I'm asking you."  
"Yeah, Daisuke-kun, please try!" Hikari requested.  
"O-okay."

We turned on the computer and held up the D-3 which showed on the screen the Digital Gate like we usually saw it.  
"Digital Gate, open!" After a few seconds, the gate indicated that it was opened. We all gasped in surprised.  
"The Digital Gate opened!" Iori cheered.  
"Let's go!" Daisuke announced. "We might as well! Let's go!"  
"I'm home!" We heard a female voice call out. "Huh? We sure have a lot of guests…"  
"Hold up, let's postpone that trip." Taichi said.  
"Why? I thought you said your folks already knew what was going on?"  
"They do, but we've already proven Koushiro right."  
"Indeed. We've discovered that we can go to the Digital World as long as we have a computer." Koushiro said.

"If only we had known earlier… we could have gone yesterday on August 1st." Taichi sounded somewhat disappointed.  
"Yeah, but that power outage over there put a damper on that plan." Ross reminded. The others wanted to go to the Digital World on their Digimon anniversary but there were problems with the power at the block where the warehouse was so we were unable to go.  
"I guess… I'm sorry I didn't realize." Koushiro apologized.  
"It's fine! It's not your fault, Koushiro." Taichi held up his hands. "There's always next year."  
"However, while being able to go to the Digital World from home is good, it can also be a problem." Iori pointed out.  
"How?" Hikari questioned, before the door opened up to reveal Taichi and Hikari's mother.  
"You kids doing alright?" We all nodded. "Alright then." She then closed the door.  
"Iori-kun is right. If we go to the Digital World from our homes, some of us will be unable to do that as their families are still in the dark." Koushiro informed.  
"Right, myself, Daisuke-kun, Iori-kun and Miyako-san. My parents are already a wreck right now with Osamu going missing… if I suddenly disappeared from my room… I don't want to think about that." I said. The others nodded in agreement.

 _Fuji TV Building, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 3rd, 2002. 0937 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Chosen Children were all on their way to the Fuji TV Building in order to pay their respects to the ultimate sacrifice that Wizarmon made for Hikari and Tailmon during the fight with Vamdemon. Hikari had in her hands a bunch of roses as they all approached the building. However, a large group of ominous storm clouds began moving over the building, and the sound of thunder was echoing from it.  
"The weather changed so suddenly…" Hikari noticed. Soon, lightning began crashing around and one bolt struck the station.  
"It got struck by lightning!" Daisuke shouted. Inside the building was a scene of complete chaos, people were running and screaming as the power had gone out and were trying desperately to get out. Hiroaki was running too until he noticed the shadow moving along the floor and the walls. The large crowd of people ran out much to the Chosen Children's confusion. However, Tailmon suddenly gasped in realization about something and ran inside.  
"Tailmon!" Hikari shouted and ran after with the others following close behind.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

We ran after Tailmon until we finally reached the observation deck of the building. For a moment, I saw a quick flash of myself staring down Vamdemon three years ago. I almost wanted to smile, I was proud that I was able to be brave at that moment. However, I was brought back to reality when we all saw a dark shadow ground around in circles on the roof.  
"What…" Jou muttered.  
"What is that?" I questioned. Things in the room so began to rock before a whole stack of flyers blew away and pelted us. The shadow just kept on moving around the room.  
"I… I'm here!" Tailmon ran forward. "That's enough! I'm here!"  
"A Digimon's doing this!" Chibimon shouted.  
"What!?" Daisuke shouted as the three Baby-Level Digimon jumped out of their partners arms.  
"Yeah, no doubt!" cried Upamon.  
"How can you be so sure?" Miyako wondered.  
"We're Digimon too! We know!" Poromon explained. I looked over to see all the rest of the Digimon nodding in agreement.

"Chibimon, evolve! V-MON!" "Upamon, evolve! ARMADIMON!" "Poromon, evolve! HAWKMON!"  
"They evolved!" Miyako was surprised. I almost forgot, they haven't seen a Digimon evolve in our world.  
"If a Digimon is in the Real World, it has to be an enemy." Hawkmon determined.  
"Then, it really is a Digimon?" Daisuke questioned.  
"A Digimon…" I muttered. Wait a second… Tailmon… the building… could it be?  
"Alright, let's go!" V-mon ordered all the Digimon. All but Wormmon and Patamon, who were still in their human partners arms, ran forward; only to be blocked by Tailmon.  
"Wait!" She turned back around. "I'm here!"  
"Tailmon…" A haunting voice echoed.  
"I'm here."  
"Tailmon…"  
"It's calling Tailmon!" Iori shouted. The shadow soon slowed down before stopping in front of Tailmon.  
"Wizarmon!" All of us older Chosen Children collectively gasped and dropped our jaws. It all made sense now. And as soon as she said that, the shadow lifted off of the floor to reveal the transparent specter of Wizarmon.

"Tailmon…" Wizarmon spoke, now in his normal voice and not that haunting one a few moments ago.  
"Wizarmon!" I cried out.  
"Th-that's…" "I-it's…" "I d-don't…" "Wizarmon?" The new kids were speechless.  
"Wizarmon… you were calling me, weren't you?" Tailmon asked.  
"Yes… There's something I have to tell you."  
"Something to tell me? What is it?"  
"You don't have enough power to defeat your enemy right now."  
"Enemy? You mean the Digimon Kaiser?" Daisuke questioned.  
"The enemy is not who you are fighting now. There is a far greater darkness. That darkness cannot be fought off with only your powers. To return the one who has fallen to the darkness back to his true self…"  
"Return…?" Tailmon asked while we heard Ken gasp once again.

"Compassion will release the golden light." Wizarmon mysteriously explained.  
"Compassion will release the golden light…?" Miyako repeated.  
"Compassion alone is not enough. You need the golden light."  
"Understood." Tailmon nodded.  
"The time is near. Hurry, all of you."  
"Us?" V-mon was confused.  
"Take care of Tailmon."  
"Wizarmon!" Tailmon stepped forward. Wizarmon raised his hand and they reached out to each other. However, Wizarmon's hand just passed through her. He pulled back and looked at his hands before a sorrowful look came across his face.  
"I'm sorry… Tailmon. I wish I could've done more…"

He soon began floating backwards which caused Tailmon to run after him.  
"Wizarmon! Wizarmon!" She then placed herself up against the viewing glass as Wizarmon fazed through the wall. "Wizarmon!" Tailmon cried with a stream of tears.  
"Hurry!" He called out before he vanished.  
"Tailmon…" I whispered as I walked up to her before holding her. I couldn't help but cry with her.  
"Should've figured all this out sooner." Yamato said.  
"He came here to warn us…" muttered Sora.  
"On this day, in this place, Wizarmon…" Takeru began to speak before he just stopped. The memories of Wizarmon jumping in the way and taking the full deadly force of Vamdemon's attack in order to save Tailmon and I began flashing in my mind. It made more tears come out.  
"Will we… see him again?" I sniffled.  
"I'm sure we will." Taichi helped me up.  
"Yeah." Ross nodded.  
"Wizarmon… thank you. I will not waste the life you gave me that day." Tailmon thanked. Wizarmon's warning still stood in our minds. What exactly did he mean by 'compassion will release the golden light'? And what was that darker foe that he mentioned? Is the Digimon Kaiser merely a pawn in some worse villain's game?

One thing is for sure, we have to find him quickly; for Wizarmon's sake…

* * *

I'm not going to deny it. I'm almost twenty-five years old and that ending still makes me cry.

Fun note, in the amazing fic **Secret of the 327th** , the Trandoshan slavers, the ones who captured Ashoka in the original timeline of the Clone Wars, leave Suzie to be killed in the Kashyyyk Shadowlands. She ends up soon finding refuged in Jolee Bindo's old shack where she meets the spirt of Qui-Gon, which made me cry because it completely reminded me of this episode.

So anyways, apparently there's a darker force working from the shadows... let's not deny it, we all know who it is. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	24. The Final Offensive! Pursue the Kaiser!

The hunt is on now! A final showdown is in the works!

Shoutout to old face **Neo Gem Rose** for the fav, sorry to hear about your previous profile.

And shoutouts to **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , and **Whiteling** for the reviews.  
Oh, and **God of the Challenge** , *Tears up before noticing the bowl of onions on the cash register* 'What the? Would you get outta here!'

Now that SpongeBob joke is out of the way, let's continue.

* * *

 **Chapter 23: The Final Offensive! Pursue the Kaiser!**

 _Digital World. August 5th, 2002. 1042 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

'Compassion will release the golden light'. The words that Wizarmon left us just rang in my head and probably everyone else's. What exactly did he mean by that? And what about that darker force? That's terrific. Here I though the Kaiser was the biggest threat but apparently if we defeat him, there's something else around the corner. It's like when we defeated Devimon, only to find out our journey was just beginning. Well, with that warning, we've essentially turned our attention from destroying Dark Towers to a desperate search for the Kaiser's base. We're almost practically obsessed with it. But, if we do find it, we can commence Operation: Grand Slam and end this fight once and for all. Right now, everyone is scouring every inch of the area we're sure the Kaiser is hiding his base. We can only hope someone finds it soon. The most important thing is to end this war before classes start up again or we might not get another chance like this until Christmas… and by then it might be too late.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I tried climbing a very steep hill that had a bunch of trolley and railcars embedded into the rocks before I lost my grip and began sliding down it. I shouted out in terror but it was short lived as I was quickly caught by Koushiro.  
"Iori-kun, are you alright?" He asked as he helped pull me up.  
"Y…yes, I'm fine." I told him.  
"We're almost at the top. Let's go for it."  
"Koushiro-han, hurry over here!" Tentomon shouted from above.  
"What is it, Tentomon?" We climbed up to the top of the hill and we soon saw what Tentomon was all excited about.  
"Koushiro-san, over there…" I pointed.  
"That's…"  
"So many Dark Towers…"

Talk about the worst case scenario. We saw out across a large desert valley that was filled with Dark Towers. I think there were almost thirty of them just surrounding this large stone structure that had a few glass domes attached to it. Not to mention the area was being guarded by an army of Tuskmon, well, it was until a bright light came from the structure and a bunch of DarkTyranomon and Kuwagamon came out and attacked the Tuskmon. I guess the Tuskmon were not under the Kaiser's control.  
"How cruel…" I growled.  
"They came out of that weird looking place, dagyaa." Armadimon noticed.  
"I'm just guessing, but that must be the Digimon Kaiser's base." said Koushiro. I doubt it is anything else. We kept watching the cruel fight until Koushiro looked worried. "Oh no! I think they saw us!" He kneeled down and checked out his D-3. "Nothing… evolution is impossible here! We need to get out of here and report this to the others fast! Kabuterimon is the fastest one of us but with the towers…" Suddenly, a Kuwagamon flew up right beside us and forced us backwards.  
"Leave this to me and run!" Armadimon stepped forward.  
"We're counting on you." I said. "Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"

Digmon proceeded to distract the Kuwagamon while we grabbed a large piece of flat metal and used it as a sled to slide down the hill.  
"How much further?" I cried.  
"We should be far enough…" Unfortunately, the last person we wanted to see flew right above us. It was the Kaiser and he was riding on that Devidramon of his. He soon began to chuckle.  
"Long time, no see."  
"Digimon Kaiser!" I shouted.  
"What are you doing here?"  
"I have no intention of answering you!"  
"Koushiro-han!" Tentomon got Koushiro's attention.  
"Okay."  
"Tentomon, Evolve! KABUTE-!" He evolution died down as the Kaiser held up his Dark Digivice. "I can't evolve!"

"Did you insects forget that the Dark Digivice keeps you from evolving?" The Kaiser taunted. We growled as we were in a worrisome predicament. However, our fortunes turned when the ground in front of us opened up and swallowed us. It turns out that Digmon dug a tunnel underneath us.  
"Digmon!" I cried.  
"Made it just in time." Digmon soon dug a long tunnel away from the direction of the Kaiser. After a couple of minutes, we were back on the surface.  
"You saved us. Thanks."  
"Koushiro-han, let's try again!" suggested Tentomon.  
"Right."  
"Tentomon, Evolve! KABUTERIMON!" We climbed onto the back of his head and soon burst out of the forest and into the skies, trying to put as much distance as we could from the Kaiser and his base.

 _Izumi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 5th, 2002. 1115 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

We were all sitting in Koushiro's room as we waited for him and Iori to return as they were the last ones that needed to return. After a few minutes of waiting, they reappeared in the bedroom.  
"Welcome back!" Taichi greeted as he sat backwards in Koushiro's chair.  
"Where's my mother?" Koushiro asked.  
"Said something about picking up some groceries."  
"We made it…" He turned back around and began typing at his computer.  
"So, how'd it go?"  
"There were Dark Towers everywhere." Iori explained.  
"I knew it!" I shouted.  
"They were all over our area too." Daisuke said.  
"It was like they were telephone poles." mentioned Takeru.  
"It seems like the Kaiser has been more focused on holding the areas he's conquered rather than taking new ones for a while now." Ken guessed.

"Not only that, we found it! The Kaiser's base!" Iori exclaimed causing us all to widen our eyes.  
"The base?" Hikari questioned.  
"'Bout time. He's got nowhere to run from there." Ross smiled.  
"Everyone, please take a look at this." Koushiro spoke up and turned our attention to the computer screen. "First off, this is the area where Daisuke-kun's group went… This is where Takeru-kun's group went… And this is where we went. When you connect them…" After a few key strokes, we began to see a pattern with the towers.  
"This is…" Takeru muttered.  
"It's like a huge slug passed through…" I said.  
"The areas are being conquered systematically." Poromon growled.  
"Our Digital World…!" Patamon sounded very upset.  
"That Kaiser!" Chibimon cursed.  
"At this rate… we'll never stop him." Wormmon worried.  
"It looks like he's ramping it up, dagyaa." guessed Upamon.

"'The time is near'." Tailmon said as she paced back and forth on the bed. She apparently was quoting what Wizarmon said the other day.  
"'Hurry, all of you'." Hikari repeated another one of his warnings. "I wonder if this is what Wizarmon was telling us?"  
"It must be." Takeru believed.  
"Then, what are we doing wasting our time here?" Daisuke wondered. "We found the Kaiser's base, so we should just strike! Right, Chibimon?"  
"Yeah!"  
"Running headfirst with no planning is just a recipe for disaster." Ken warned.  
"Ken-kun is right, Daisuke-kun. If we're gonna take that place, we need a grand plan to deal with it." Ross advised.  
"Sorry, I know… I was just saying how I felt about it…"

"It won't be as easy as before, huh?" I asked.  
"That's right; we may not be able to do it one day like always." Takeru responded. Those words actually surprised me.  
"R-right… if we're worried about the time, we won't be able to take down the base."  
"Yeah. We won't return until we beat the Kaiser." Hikari determined. "That's the sort of determination we need."  
"Determination…?" I muttered. This is new territory that I'm walking into, and after hearing the stories the others told… it was slowly creeping on my nerves.  
"I am determined, but if I'm not back for dinner, my mother will get worried…" Iori admitted.  
"Just make something up. Like you're staying at a friend's or something." Daisuke told him.  
"Daisuke-kun, you would do that?" Hikari sounded a bit disappointed in Daisuke.  
"It-it's just an idea…"

"Our Digimon won't be able to evolve with the Dark Towers around." Koushiro kept looking at the screen.  
"Well, thank goodness our Digimon can Armor-Evolve." Yamato sighed.  
"This is going to take everyone if we're going to bring down the Kaiser. So, camping!" Taichi slid in the chair. "We should all go camping!"  
"Camping?" Ross questioned. "How does that help?"  
"You mean, say we're going camping and go to the Digital World?" Takeru seemed to have figured out what Taichi meant.  
"Exactly, that way, no one is going to be bothering us for a while and the new kids' parents won't be wondering where they are. All of us go camping but in reality, we use that time to bring down the Kaiser's base."  
"Brilliant alibi, Taichi." Yamato praised the plan.  
"Great idea, huh?"

There was a knocking at the door once Taichi said that.  
"C-come in!" Koushiro said.  
"Welcome, everyone." Koushiro's mother walked in.  
"Welcome home."  
"So, what were you all discussing?" She asked.  
"Well, Koushiro-han found the Kaiser's base so we're trying to figure out how we stop him." Tentomon explained. I guess it's a relief that the older kids' parents know about all this; makes it slightly easier on all of us.  
"I see…"  
"We're thinking about going camping to use as a cover while we fight the Kaiser. I'm not gonna lie to you, Izumi-san, but it's gonna be similar to the old days." Ross explained.  
"I always did feel like this was a possibility when Koushiro explained it back in April." She sighed. "Well, you know you have your father and I's support, right, Koushiro-kun?"  
"Thanks, Mom."

"But I must ask, while the camping is a good idea, who would be the chaperon to accompanying you?"  
"Ah, I think I convince my dad to do this." Yamato spoke up.  
"Is that alright, Yamato?" Taichi whispered to him.  
"Maybe."  
"Well, my dad needs to take some vacation time; I can get him to tag along as well." Ross said. "Besides, he's been all gung-ho about this since April so I think he wouldn't mind playing a key role in helping."  
"Well, if you kids need any help, you can always feel free to ask us." Koushiro's mother bowed before she left the room.  
"Thanks, Izumi-san!" We all said.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"I'm the camp chaperon!?" Hiroaki questioned after his sons explained the plan to him outside his work.  
"Please, I promised everyone…" Yamato said. "Besides, you'd get Ross's father to assist you; Ross seems very confident that his father will help. And also, after the past few days with Wizarmon's spirit, don't you think you should take a break? After all, you said you had a lot of paid vacation time, right?"  
"Oh man…"  
"Hey, hey." Takeru tapped him on the shoulder. "Didn't you say you got a pretty good bonus?"  
"Okay, okay, I'll do."  
"Good, because we're leaving on Wednesday." Yamato informed.  
"That's the day after tomorrow!"

"You sure about this?" Phil questioned.  
"It's the only way we can see to properly do this without drawing any undue attention." Ross finished explaining the plan to his father. "Besides, you haven't taken a vacation day since you were reassigned to the base. I mean, for crying out loud, you run it now since you were promoted to Rear Admiral two months ago."  
"I know, and you don't need to convince me, I'll come. I know exactly what happens when trouble happens in the Digital World."  
"Yeah, it appears in the sky and threatens to wipe us all out. Thanks."  
"Just be careful, would ya?"  
"We will. Oh, by the way, be sure to bring your laptop and the Outback as well. When we go and come back from the Digital World, it will be through that computer, and we need the extra vehicle to take us home."  
"I got it, I got it."

 _Motomiya Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 6th, 2002. 1832 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

I was in my room, packing up the final essential things I needed for my 'camping trip' tomorrow. Thankfully, my folks bought the camping idea and allowed me to go. Jun had walked into the room and brought my dinner before placing it on the floor and putting her hands on her hips.  
"Hey, hey…" She tried to get my attention.  
"What's with you?" I asked.  
"So you're going camping?" Told you that last night.  
"Yeah."  
"With Takeru-kun and the others?"  
"Yeah…" Where is she going with this?  
"That means Yamato-kun is going too!?" Oh here we go.  
"Yeah!"  
"I see… then, then…"  
"Stop being so annoying, get out!"  
"What!?" I shoved her out.

As I pushed her out, I looked to the TV Mom was watching and saw a news reporter standing outside a familiar building.  
"Now, we'll interview the parents of child prodigy Ichijouji Osamu, whose whereabouts are still unknown." It then cut to inside the apartment where Ken's dad was talking to the mic while his mom had a handkerchief in her hands, trying to absorb her tears.  
"He'll be back." Ken's dad believed. "I know he's alive somewhere."  
"What's with you?" Jun asked me as I came back to reality to look at her before looking at the TV again.  
"He… Osamu-chan… is such a kind boy…" Ken's mom teared up. If only they knew… then again, I agree with Ken about that. They didn't need to know the truth.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I sighed as I got back up; finding it hard to sleep.  
 _"_ _That's right, we may not be able to do it in one day like always."  
"Yeah. We won't return until we beat the Kaiser. That's the sort of determination we need."_ I recalled Takeru and Hikari's words from yesterday.  
"Yeah, this adventure is completely different to anything up to now." I said to myself. "Are you ready, Miyako?" I steeled myself.  
"Still awake? Get to sleep soon or tomorrow will be tough…" Poromon yawned before he went back to sleep.  
"Yeah, good night. I have to do my best…" I whispered as I closed my eyes.

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 7th, 2002. 0521 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

'To return the one who has fallen to the darkness back to his true self…' That phrase that Wizarmon had said was continually ringing in my head. I was beginning to make my final preparations for the plan I had.  
"Are you sure about this, Ken-chan?" Wormmon quietly asked as it was still early in the morning.  
"Not really… do me a favor and tell me what I'm doing is crazy."  
"What you're doing is crazy… but if your heart tells you to do this and if you believe that this is right, then I'll be with you all the way." I smiled at him.  
"Thank you so much Wormmon." I finished writing my note to Mom and Dad, telling them that I left for the camping trip before they got up. However, the truth was, I wasn't going with the others. I finished typing the last of the message on my D-Terminal before sending it to Ross.

'Dear Everyone, I know you're expecting me to join you tomorrow but I'm afraid that I will be unable to join you. You see, I feel I must take a different path than all of you. Our end goals are still the same of course; saving the Digital World from the Digimon Kaiser. However, I have another goal. I want to save Osamu from the Kaiser as well. You see, Wizarmon's messaged about freeing the one who has fallen into darkness… Those were the words I was looking for. Perhaps Osamu is still out there, the one I remember. It has to be. I've decided to go on ahead and confront the Kaiser at his base… alone. I'm leaving behind almost everything, just bringing my D-3 and Wormmon. My plan is to try to bring back Osamu and at the same time figure out what he's been up to. When you guys beginning your attack, I'll be there with you, but I'm gonna try and see if there's a non-violent way to end this. I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to harm Osamu. You know exactly what I mean, Ross-san. I know what he's done but he's still my brother. I hope you all will understand. I'm truly thankful to meeting all of you. I've never truly had friends before but I'm always grateful for your help, especially after that finding out the Kaiser's identity. Stay safe and I promise I will do the same. Sincerely, Ichijouji Ken.'  
"Ready, Wormmon?"  
"Ready, Ken-chan." I nodded and held up my D-3.  
"Digital Gate, open." I quietly said. It unlocked and we were transported to the Digital World.

We ended up in an area that wasn't too far away from where the fortress was. It was also an area where Wormmon could normally evolve into Stingmon so we flew towards the base. After a few minutes flying, we were near the place.  
"Keep it easy, Stingmon. Try not to rile up the guards."  
"I will… but, Ken-chan… there's no base." Huh? I looked ahead and saw that where the base once was there now was a giant crater in its place. "Wait a second… I found it… but it's…" I soon saw what Stingmon saw and I should've realized it sooner. The base could fly. And then I remembered something else, Osamu and I loved the Studio Ghibli film **_Castle in the Sky_** and I should've known that would have played an influence on the base. Stingmon flew in closer and landed near the large dome on the lower part of the rock formation; we assumed it was a door or something. Stingmon reverted back to Wormmon and now we waited.

After a few more minutes, the sound of the dome began to open and the Kaiser… Osamu began walking towards us with Monodramon at his side.  
"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" Osamu yawned.  
"Sorry, Osam-"  
"It's the Digimon Kaiser, Ichijouji! Understand?" He didn't even bother calling me my own name; guessing the Kaiser is in control right now.  
"Apologizes, Kaiser." I bowed.  
"You've got about ten seconds to explain what you're doing here before I have my slaves have their fun with you."  
"I've come to…" I got down on both knees in front of him. "…surrender." I clearly surprised him but it only lasted for a moment.  
"You must think I'm a fool."  
"Far from it, I only ask to speak to my brother before fully surrendering." Osamu just laughed.  
"Well, you've came all this way for nothing. Ichijouji Osamu is dead." Yeah, it's now confirmed that the Kaiser is in full control.

The sun soon began to rise over the horizon and now that I got a better look at him, the Kaiser was looking terrible. It looked like he was sleep-deprived, starving, and dehydrated, though not overtly so, but it was clear he was not taking good care of his body.  
"So you wish to surrender? Fine, I'll play your game, but on one condition."  
"What is it?"  
"Get down on your hands and knees and bow to me. Beg me to let you serve me." I did as he told.  
"Please let me serve you, Digimon Kaiser."  
"Louder."  
"Please let-"  
"Louder!"  
"Please let me serve you, oh mighty Digimon Kaiser!"  
"Admit you're worthless!" Thank goodness I don't have much of an ego. I don't mind doing this if it helps at all getting Osamu back.  
"I am worthless, Digimon Kaiser! I am unworthy of your presence!"  
"That's what I though. Now stand up."

I did what was told and bowed before him again.  
"What is thy bidding, my master?" Ugh, why did I say that? Curse Ross for playing **_Return of the Jedi_** the other day!  
"Give me your Digivice." I handed it to him without any hesitation.  
"This is my Digivice. Understand? You are not allowed to touch it. Are we clear?"  
"Crystal."  
"Good. People who go through other people's things without permission are the worst people, aren't they, Ichijouji?" I've heard that phrase before. Osamu said it when we were much younger and I got into his things.  
"Yes, they are. I will not touch your things, oh Kaiser."  
"Good, from now on, you serve me. Right now, you answer to Monodramon." Well that's good; I'd prefer to talk to Monodramon at this moment.  
"Monodramon, lead him to his room… down in the dungeons, and then report back to me."  
"Right away, Digimon Kaiser-sama."

Wormmon and I followed Monodramon through the halls. That line I said earlier was slowly looking less out of place because I'm getting a huge Death Star feeling from all the metal halls and especially this large reactor-core I saw through a window at the center of the base.  
"It's been a long time, Monodramon." I finally said.  
"You don't know how happy I was to see you guys when you finally came back to the Digital World." He told us.  
"I feel terrible that we forgot you, Monodramon." Wormmon apologized.  
"I'm sure it's not your fault, just like Osamu-chan's actions."  
"So you believe too? That there's someone in control of him?" I said.  
"It's the only reason I can think of why he became like this. He's been acting this way ever since he returned to the Digital World."  
"This was way before we showed up right?" Monodramon nodded.

We soon reached the dungeons and walked past the long halls of captured Digimon before we reached an empty cell. We walked in and Monodramon closed the door, but didn't lock it.  
"He'll probably send me to get you later, so until then, just stay here… let's try not to make him mad today, okay?"  
"Okay… Monodramon, I promise you, we'll get the old Osamu back." I told him.  
"I hope so. I think you might be the only one to help him now." He looked sad before he turned and walked out of the dungeons.  
"Haven't seen someone like you in a while." A loud, gruff voice said from the next cell. We looked over and found standing at the prison bars was this large, green Digimon with horns and a big mouth looking at us.  
"Um… do I know you?"  
"Nah, but I do know some of your friends."

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Digital World, go go!" I shouted as I was pumping my fists while Koushiro was finishing up things in the headquarters. "Defeat the Digimon Kaiser!"  
"What's wrong with her?" whispered Patamon to Poromon.  
"Well, she's been like that since she woke up."  
"Alright, so let's quickly go over the plan." Koushiro said. "We'll go at it in two waves. The newer kids will go first and check things out while waiting for the rest of us. We'll head to the campsite to keep up appearances and then head to the Digital World from there to meet up. We'll then focus everything we've got on breaking through and getting in that base and try to figure out how to destroy it."  
"Sure you don't want to come camping, Takeo?" Taichi asked.  
"Nah, besides, someone needs to watch out for things here, just in case."  
"If there are no problems, then let's get going." Takeru said.  
"Hey, wait a second! Where's Ken-san?" Iori reminded.

"He's walked into the lion's den." Ross said as he walked into the warehouse.  
"What?" Hikari questioned.  
"Just forwarded you all a message that he sent me." We all picked up his message on our D-Terminals and read it. Our eyes widened.  
"Is he serious?" Daisuke shouted.  
"This is extremely foolish." Yamato shook his head.  
"No…" I spoke up and everyone looked at me. "He's… he's done what he thinks he needs to do. Wouldn't you all do the same if you were in his shoes?" The kids with siblings slowly nodded their heads in agreement. They would've done anything if their siblings were the Kaiser. "It is what it is, we just need to do what we were planning on doing."  
"Right." Taichi responded. "Be careful everyone." We all nodded.  
"Let's go then! Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children… let's roll!"

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

Ross, Mimi, Sora, and Jou all got in Phil's Outback and headed off to the camp sight ahead of us. Yamato, Koushiro, and I got in the van Yamato's dad was renting from the station which was carrying a bunch of the camping equipment, hence why we were staying behind for a few more minutes.  
"Did they go?" Yamato's dad asked.  
"Yeah." Yamato said.  
"Thanks for taking us!" I told him.  
"Let's get going, then." Yamato's dad pulled the gear shift and was about to get going before we saw someone waiting on the sidewalk.  
"Yamato-kun! Good morning!" Our eyes nearly bugged out when we saw Daisuke's sister Jun standing there.  
"What's this about? I didn't know about this." I whispered to him.  
"Me neither… she must have invited herself."  
"Anyway, do something about it."  
"H-hey…" Yamato walked up to her.  
"I heard you were going camping, so I came too!"  
"I-I see…"  
"Daisuke-kun is in trouble with Yamato-san again, huh?" Koushiro smugly whispered to me.  
"Being a popular guy isn't easy."

"Huh? Where are Daisuke and the others?" Jun looked at us.  
"Ah… th-they're in a different car…" Yamato lied. Koushiro and I were about to fall over laughing. "They're traveling in Ross's dad's car."  
"I see."  
"Um, I have a favor to ask."  
"Eh? What?"  
"Can you turn around and count to ten? Ah, I'd like you to close your eyes as well."  
"Okay!" She complied and began counting as Yamato ran back to the van.  
"Dad, go."  
"Are you sure? That girl…"  
"I'm sure." Yamato's dad started to move the van and we left Jun behind.  
"Yamato-kun!" We heard her yell as we drove away.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"It's up there. Be careful, everyone!" Iori warned as we climbed up the hill to where he said the base was. However, I was pumped so full of energy I was climbing up way faster than the rest of them.  
"Miyako-san! Miyako-san, wait!" Hawkmon shouted at me.  
"Hey, guys! We've got a problem! The Kaiser's base is gone!" Patamon flew down to us. What!? We got over the hill and found a valley full of Dark Towers but no base.  
"That weird building used to be where that huge hole is." Armadimon explained. I couldn't wait any longer and decided to investigate myself by sliding down the hill.  
"Wait! Wait, please!" Hawkmon still continued to shout at me.

"Was it really here?" Daisuke asked as we walked up to the large hole.  
"No doubt about it." Iori explained. "But why is this big hole here…?"  
"So the base just disappeared?" Takeru suggested.  
"Disappear? But that's…" Hikari tried to argue but stopped.  
"What do we do?" Patamon wondered.  
"What do we do…? Well, we can't go back now." Takeru reminded.  
"Let's search for it. I'll take the Kaiser's base and take it down!" Daisuke declared.  
"The sky!" I shouted as I pointed upwards. "It flew! It must be flying across the sky!"  
"You think so?" Iori asked.

"Or maybe…" I soon grabbed a rope and began tying it to a nail that I was pounding into the ground at the edge of the crater. "Inoue Miyako, ready to explore the Digimon Kaiser's underground empire!" I saluted before tying the rope around my waist. "Await my report!"  
"M-Miyako-san!" Hawkmon followed me as I begun to climb down. "Stop it already, please! Let's go back with everyone…"  
"Shut up! This adventure is completely different to anything we've seen!"  
"Hey, you're not listening to me!"  
"I'm determined, okay?"  
"Please listen to me!" We stopped our auguring when the ground rumbled and a giant black spider climbed out of the ground.  
"Miyako-san!" Takeru yelled out to me. "That's Dokugmon! An Insect-type Digimon with a real nasty temper! Watch out for its Stinger Pollination, it's deadly!" Upon hearing that, my fears quickly took ahold of me once again. I eventually cracked and just screamed. The spider charged his attack and fired at me… which would've hit had Hawkmon shoved me out of the way and took the full brunt of the attack!

"Hawkmon!" I shouted for him.  
"Miyako, get out of there!" Daisuke advised as I swung back and grabbed Hawkmon who was no longer conscious. Dokugmon started crawling towards us.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon was asking to fight.  
"Right! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Burning Courage, FLADRAMON!" The others began to carry me back up the rope while Fladramon jumped down into the crater to stop Dokugmon from reaching me.  
"Hawkmon! Hawkmon!" I kept shouting. "Hawkmon! Hawkmon! Hang in there!"  
"Knuckle Fire!" Fladramon's attack knocked the spider off of the crater wall and back down to the bottom, leaving his underbelly exposed. "Fire Rocket!" I was pulled out of the crater before it completely exploded in flames; all the while I was trying to shake Hawkmon awake.  
"HAWKMON!" I screamed.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

After Fladramon destroyed that Evil Spiral on Dokugmon, we turned our attention to Hawkmon. We wrapped up his chest and laid him out on some leaves. He was still breathing but he was unresponsive.  
"Hawkmon… is he okay?" V-mon walked up to us.  
"Yeah… kind of." informed Daisuke.  
"We've treated his wounds, but…" Tailmon trailed off.  
"He needs to lie still until he regains consciousness." I said.  
"Hawkmon…" We looked to Miyako and she looked like a wreck. She obviously felt terrible about everything.  
"Miyako-san." She said nothing to me, she just kept sobbing.  
"Guys…" She finally responded to us. "Guys… I'll stay here until Hawkmon recovers…" She turned around and we could see her eyes were quite red from all the crying. "So, go look for the Kaiser's base!"  
"But…" Daisuke tried to argue.  
"Please… I don't want to be any more trouble…" Her tears just kept flowing.

"Okay." Takeru stood up. "We'll do that."  
"Yeah, we'll go." Daisuke agreed.  
"Yes. We'll meet up with the others." added Iori.  
"I'm… staying." I said. I didn't want to leave Miyako all alone, not while she's this down.  
"Hikari-chan…" Miyako whispered.  
"A Digimon could appear again, right? So we'll be bodyguards! Okay, Tailmon?"  
"Leave it to me." Miyako began to smile in appreciation for what we were doing.  
"Got it." Takeru nodded. "Then, if anything happens, we'll keep in contact by mail. Our location is on the D-3, and if we don't find the base by sunset, we'll come back." Both Miyako and I nodded as the others walked away.  
"Hey, you don't think Ken may have-" I heard Daisuke begin to say.  
"Doubt it. The Kaiser probably already assumed that we were going to go after his base once we found it." Takeru told him.  
"Yeah, Koushiro-san and I didn't get away without him seeing us." Iori informed.

"Miyako-san…" I turned to her.  
"What?"  
"If you were offended by what I said the other day… I'm sorry."  
"Huh?"  
"About needing determination…"  
"It's not your fault, don't worry." I smiled when she said that and nodded.  
"Sorry."  
"Ah…" Tailmon came to a realization. "There should be an herb that can be used against the poison in this forest… I'll go look for it."

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

We regrouped with the others and explained everything to them before we headed out to search for the now missing base.  
"How could something that big just suddenly vanish?" Mimi questioned.  
"No idea, but there certainly no shortage on Dark Towers around here." Jou looked around.  
"These clearly look like they've just been built." Sora said.  
"But they're all in a line… that's weird." wondered Yamato.  
"Anyway, let's keep going." Taichi pointed ahead. I suddenly began hearing a somewhat buzzing/rumbling noise over the air and had to stop and turn around.  
"Iori? What's wrong, dagyaa?" Armadimon asked me.  
"Eh… well… Armadimon… just now, over there…" I pointed to a nearby canyon but the sound had died down now. "Huh?"  
"Hey, Iori! Hurry up!" Daisuke shouted at me. "You'll get lost!"  
"Ah, yes… I'm coming!" I ran after them.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"You called for me, oh Kaiser?" I bowed as I walked into the Kaiser's control room. All that the room had was a bunch of screens with images of Digimon on them and a single chair, his throne; and it wasn't that impressive of a throne at that. I quickly saw an image of Garurumon before he vanished leaving just his legs.  
"So what exactly was your plan here, Ichijouji? Try to find out what I've been up to all this time?" He said.  
"If I have to be honest, then yes."  
"Well, it doesn't matter if you know now, you're already too late. Your friends are complete fools; being so predictable. They've come to try and destroy this place, but they'll fail once my masterpiece is finished. I now know the Dark Whirlpool's location."  
"We're almost there." Monodramon informed, though I could hear a hint of sadness in his voice.  
"May I at least ask what the Dark Whirlpool is?" I questioned as Wormmon got closer to me.  
"It's the location of Dark Digimon. I need the data of one to finish the perfect Digimon. It will be a partner worthy of me. Your friends will all be crushed under his power."

So this was his grand plan? To create a Digimon to conquer the Digital World with.  
"You're actually smart, Ichijouji. You surrendering has spared you from a fate that I plan to give to your friends." I couldn't take these words anymore.  
"Osamu, do you even hear yourself anymore!? You're talking about murdering people; my friends! And what perfect partner? You already have one in Monodramon!" Everything happened so fast after I said that. The Kaiser got up out of his chair and pulled out his whip before he swung it and struck me in the kneecap, causing me to fall to the floor.  
"Ken-chan!" Wormmon jumped in front of me to take the second strike from the whip. I quickly checked my leg and found that it was okay, but it still stung greatly.  
"First of all… consider that a warning to your rebellious attitude. Do that again and I won't be so merciful. And secondly, him…" He cruelly laughed. "That pathetic dragon isn't worth a thing to anybody!" He kept laughing until he took his seat again and went back to work on his new Digimon. Monodramon still looked at him with a sad look on his face.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Hawkmon slowly began to open his eyes while lying on my lap before he turned up to look at me.  
"Miyako-san…"  
"Hawkmon, you're awake!"  
"I'm so glad." Hikari said.  
"I'm sorry… Hawkmon…" I apologized.  
"Please… don't worry about it." I nodded, trying hard not to cry again as Hikari got up and walked away, probably to talk with Tailmon who I spotted getting closer to us.  
"I… when I thought about finally facing the Digimon Kaiser… I got really nervous and couldn't stand it… So I kind of lost it…" Hawkmon couldn't help but chuckle. "And you got hurt because I was acting so stupid. I just can't stop when I get started sometimes…"  
"Like that time you admitted you have a crush on Ken-san?" I got red faced when he said that.  
"Yeah… like that. I'm sorry I'm such a bad partner."

"Don't worry about it." He repeated that phrase. "That's just the way you are." He slowly began to get up. "I like you just the way you are, Miyako-san."  
"Thanks." I said, trying to keep myself from breaking down and crying. "I'm clumsy, scatterbrained and panic easily, but… I'll do my best!"  
"Same here." I quickly gave him a tight hug.  
"Ah! Miyako-san! I'm still a bit tender!" I quickly let him go.  
"Sorry."

Once it was nightfall, Hawkmon was back on his feet and doing some stretches after Tailmon had found some herbs for him.  
"That antidote worked great. I'm fine now." He informed. "Thanks." He said to Tailmon.  
"That's great." Suddenly, we heard a strange buzzing sound filling the air.  
"What's that sound?" Hikari questioned. We climbed out on top of a buried railcar on the hill and saw out in the distance a large stone structure that was glowing with lights floating away from the area.  
"What's that?" I asked.  
"That's… that has to be the Digimon Kaiser's base." Tailmon believed.  
"So it was flying!" Hikari exclaimed. Hawkmon unraveled the bandages on his chest and let the wind take them.  
"Miyako-san… bingo, right?" I nodded when he said that.

Looks like taking down the Kaiser is going to be much more difficult than we originally thought…

* * *

When was it ever going to be easy?

I'm gonna admit this right now, for the Ken and Osamu scenes, I took influence from **Taiki Matsuki** 's fic, My Brother. It's a really good story and thought it would be perfect for mine.

Anyways, I really don't have much to say about this one, so see you all next time.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	25. Digital Abomination! Chimairamon!

Sorry for how late this chapter was submitted tonight, just more distractions.

Shoutout to **MadDogLucario96** and **DigimonAT0318** for the reviews on the last one.

I haven't got much to say with this one, so let's continue the hunt... and bear witness to the birth of a monstrosity.

* * *

 **Chapter 24: Digital Abomination! Chimairamon!**

 _Digital World. August 8th, 2002. 0842 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Talk about a lot changing in the past twenty-four hours. First, Ken decides to go on ahead and get himself captured and now we discover that Fortress Gotha can fly. Taichi kinda got upset at me because I got the name from Medal of Honor: Frontline, but I feel it fits. Anyways, we all regrouped last night and got some sleep for what was going to be a long day today. It was early in the morning when Takeru, Koushiro, I and Iori decided to leave the others behind and try to catch up and find the flying fortress. The three of us older Chosen Children were flying on our Armor-Evolved Digimon while Iori was in Sabmarimon who was following us along a river.  
"I'm sure Daisuke will be mad, dagyaa." Sabmarimon believed.  
"Maybe…" We heard Iori's voice over the D-Terminal. Finally got that radio function installed on it which would be a huge help.  
"Why didn't we have Daisuke-han or any of the others come with us?" ForceBeemon asked.  
"Not all of us can keep up, especially if the Kaiser's base has indeed gone to the ocean as we have believed." explained Koushiro.  
"Yeah, let the others get some more rest while we try to find the place." Takeru said.

"Heads up! The towers are going to the ocean!" Waibanmon informed. He was referring to the long line of Dark Towers we were following.  
"Looks like you were right, Koushiro. Fortress Gotha has indeed headed for the ocean." I told him.  
"The fortress must be leaving behind the towers." Pegasmon said.  
"Like leaving a crumb trail right to the Kaiser."  
"But I'm worried this is all just a ploy to lure us into a trap." Iori expressed his worries.  
"I'm with you on that, Iori-kun." Koushiro agreed.  
"Well, whatever the reason, we know where the Kaiser is going. I'm gonna send a message to the others and tell them what's going on." Takeru pulled out his D-Terminal and began typing the message.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"'We know where the Kaiser's fortress is headed.'" Hikari read off Takeru's message while the rest of the group was eating breakfast.  
"Where, where?" Miyako was on edge. She was ready to make up for her mistakes from yesterday, but the waiting for something to happen was not helping.  
"They left me behind…" Daisuke groaned.  
"Don't be down, Daisuke…" V-mon tried to assure him.  
"Yeah, what makes you so special? They left all of us behind." Yamato rolled his eyes.  
"Just relax, Daisuke, I'm sure you'll be needed soon enough." Taichi patted him on the back.

"What ae you going to do about the rest?" Monodramon asked the Kaiser who was looking at his screens. He just merely chuckled.  
"Don't worry… it will be mine soon." He took a sip of tea he had.  
"You sure they're on the way?" Ogremon questioned Ken in the dungeons.  
"If I know the others, they'll be here soon." Ken believed.

"Okay, so apparently the base can fly, but the kids are still after it." Phil walked over to Hiroaki who was getting some fishing poles ready at the campsite.  
"I just hope they're careful…"  
"If I had known it was Lake Yamanaka, I'd have gone right away…" Jun said to herself as she walked with a crowd to the bus station, still wanting to join Yamato on his camping trip even though she was not invited. However, when she got to the station, she saw the bus to Lake Yamanaka driving away. "Hey, don't leave me here!" She yelled as she ran after the bus.

"No way, Hikari-chan too!?" Daisuke shouted as the group was split in half. The children that hadn't gone ahead followed the towers to the ocean. Robinmon, Holsmon, Nefertimon and MetalSealmon continued on flying or swimming through the ocean with their human partners while Daisuke, Taichi, Yamato, and Mimi stayed ashore as their Digimon were unable to fly or swim the distance.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

Sabmarimon and I were swimming underwater, trying to keep an eye for the Kaiser's base while the others were flying above some tiny islands.  
"No sign of it anywhere." I heard Pegasmon's voice over the D-Terminal.  
"Iori-kun? You see anything down there?" Takeru asked.  
"Nothing yet. Sorry guys." I apologized.  
"How is it they can't find something that big?" wondered Sabmarimon.  
"No idea." I sighed before I looked ahead at the large island we were approaching before I realized something strange about. "Wait a second! Guys! We've found it! The whole base is underwater!" I shouted over the D-Terminal.  
"Alright!" "Way to go!" "Good going, Iori-kun!" I heard the others voices say. I looked closer at the base and saw a small tunnel near the back of it.  
"Hey, there's a tunnel right there. Sabmarimon, head through it. Guys, we've found a way in."  
"Alright, be careful, Iori-kun. Don't do anything stupid, at least not without us." Ross advised.  
"Got it, I'll keep quiet until you guys arrive. This thing has to come up to the surface some time…"  
"Takeru-kun… up ahead!" I heard Koushiro's voice call out.  
"A whirlpool?"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"It finally appeared." The Kaiser said as he looked to a screen that showed a red spiral in one of the blank squares as I walked into the control room.  
"What exactly is that, oh Kaiser?" I questioned.  
"The entrance to the origin of the power of darkness, you could say." Power of darkness? What forces are you trying to play with, Osamu? The screen changed from a map to a camera and now we saw a whirlpool in the ocean. However, it was the most ominous looking whirlpool I had ever seen as it got darker the further down you looked until it was nothing but darkness. "There should be Dark Digimon data in there. After I recover it, my original Digmon will be complete."  
"Ken-chan…" I heard Wormmon whimper. "Did you feel that?"  
"Feel what?" I whispered to him.  
"The cold…"

"Stop, Osamu-chan!" Monodramon shouted; suddenly referring to him by his true name rather than Digimon Kaiser-sama he was saying before. Guess he must have felt the same thing Wormmon did.  
"What did you say?" The Kaiser turned his chair to look at him.  
"I can feel it… in that entrance… it's hard to explain, but…  
"There's something in that whirlpool, it's scary…" Wormmon spoke up. "I'm scared!" The Kaiser chuckled.  
"I'm impressed, Ichijouji." He looked to me. "You have an even more pathetic Digimon than Monodramon." He got up out of the chair and walked away. "What a coward…"  
"No! Don't go, Osamu-chan!" Monodramon tried to follow him.  
"I don't take orders from you!" He then kicked him away.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"A giant whirlpool? Is that what they said?" Sora asked as I finished reading the latest message sent from Takeru.  
"I hope Iori-kun and Sabmarimon are going to be ok sneaking into that base." Jou's voice said over the D-Terminal as he was riding inside MetalSealmon.  
"Don't worry; they know how to be careful." I assured them as I sent another message to Takeru.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"I'm sure they know to be careful…" I said after I repeated the message that Hikari left. "But we just lost contact with them now…"  
"In any case, we have to hurry!" insisted Waibanmon.  
"I agree with Waibanmon." Pegasmon informed. "This clearly isn't safe for us."  
"Right, by the way, guys… Why are you so nervous all of a sudden?" I questioned.  
"Well, of course we're nervous! Just look at that whirlpool…" ForceBeemon spouted.  
"Takeru, can't you feel it?" Pegasmon asked me. I stared close at the whirlpool before I felt a dark presence coming from it.  
"I… I felt it! What is it?"  
"Whatever it is… if that don't spell doom, I don't know what is…" muttered Ross.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

Okay, Iori… you got inside, now you just gotta keep quiet until the others show up. Armadimon and I were walking up this long staircase until we saw a bright light up ahead and looked out across an open window. We looked down and saw this sort of reactor; it had four walkways leading to it. I assume this must be powering the base; it has to be.  
"That must be the power room." I explained to Armadimon.  
"Shall we destroy it?"  
"Wait, let's look around some more. Besides… Ken-san is still in here, let's try to find him first."  
"Alright. By the way, Iori… aren't you cold?"  
"No…"  
"Weird… I've been getting chills…"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

He probably didn't want me to do this but didn't stop me when I followed Osamu down to this viewing deck in his base. We were now deep in the whirlpool and both Digimon were even more scared than before.  
"Please, stop! Just this once…" Monodramon was begging at this point. "Or we won't be able to go back! Osamu-chan!" Everything was silent for a moment.  
"Let's move." That was all he said. The fortress began moving forward, deeper into the whirlpool.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"It's moving!" ForceBeemon saw the base under the waves slowly moving closer to the whirlpool.  
"It's going towards the whirlpool!" Pegasmon observed.  
"Iori… Ken…" I muttered as I was now fearful for them. Did either of them have any idea what the Kaiser was dragging them into? And what exactly was the Kaiser trying to achieve with all this?

 _P.O.V – Iori Hida_

We found our way into what appeared to be the dungeons of the base before we felt the whole place lightly rock. It wasn't like it was being attacked but rather-  
"It's moving!" Armadimon exclaimed. Yeah that.  
"This place…" We walked through and found that we indeed had found the dungeons as we found a whole bunch of Digimon locked up. "Digimon captured by the Kaiser!"  
"Boy, your friend wasn't kidding when he said you guys would get here." A voice from a few cells down said. I walked down and saw this large green ogre like Digimon. If I remember the stories, I think this would be Ogremon.  
"Are you Ogremon?"  
"That's right! 'Bout time you Chosen Children showed up!" He… uh… was certainly the Digimon the others told.  
"What do we do, dagyaa?" Armadimon asked.  
"This is more important than the power room." I told him. "Armor-Evolve and break them out of the cages!"  
"Agreed, dagyaa!"  
"Alright, Digimental…" I stopped as I saw a dark whirlpool in the window. "What… is that?"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Why won't you stop!?" Jun yelled at a car that drove past her. She was so desperate to get to the campsite that she was now willing to take up hitchhiking just to get there. Her luck would change as a car pulled up to her… however the drivers were a bit more on the elderly side.  
"Camping, Kenny! Must be great to be young…" The old wife said to her husband as the car drove down the highway… really slowly. So slow that a moped was going faster than them.  
"Mary, we were young once, too." Jun just placed her hand in her face at the sheer embarrassment she was going through at the moment.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Daisuke… what are you thinking?" V-mon asked me as I stared at this single palm tree at the edge of the land.  
"How about we cut this tree to make a raft?"  
"Are you kidding? Look, Daisuke-kun, I know you're upset about being left behind, but do think." Mimi tried to tell me.  
"Ugh! I just wanted to fight the Kaiser! Is that too much to ask?"  
"Would you quite complaining!? That's not helping anyone!" Yamato shouted at me.  
"Seriously, Daisuke, just get over it. We're not going to be able to do much right now so we might as well get used to it." Taichi explained. I growled again before leaning back on the tree… which tilted forward and caused me to nearly lose my balance. Suddenly the whole part of the land split away from the rest of the landmass and turned into a moving island.  
"What's going on?" Agumon questioned.  
"I think we're moving!" Gabumon observed.  
"Hey, now we might be able to catch up with the others now!" I exclaimed as we looked straight ahead.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Gah! It's huge!" ForceBeemon exclaimed.  
"There should be a cave that Iori and Armadimon entered through somewhere." I believed. "We're going in too."  
"Got it." Koushiro and Ross nodded and followed us towards the fortress. As we got closer, these grayish shadows slowly began to float around us. A quick look would show that they had haunting faces on them.  
"What are these? Ghosts? They give me the creeps…" I questioned.  
"Anyone got a Proton pack?" Ross joked as he tried to lighten the mood as best as he could.  
"What gives me the creeps is that gaping black hole down there." Pegasmon expressed his worry. It was an empty black void below us… I hope we don't have to go much further down. "Don't look!" Pegasmon warned.  
"Be careful, or it will swallow you…" Waibanmon added. We soon found the entrance way that Iori must have found and flew in.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Now, let's enter the whirlpool." The Kaiser said and the whole base began slowly moving towards it. After a few moments, we were back in the open air again and floating downwards to the black abyss below.  
"Forgive me for being so direct, Kaiser… but what exactly are we doing here?" I asked, hopeful that he'll at least tell me what the hell we're doing in this terrible place.  
"As I said before, my ultimate creation needs the data of a dark Digimon and we'll find several here." A few moments later, he went completely still and quiet.  
"Osamu-chan?" Monodramon spoke up. "Are you okay?"  
"It's nothing." He seemed to have come back to reality. "Commence recovery!" A hanger underneath us opened up and three Mechanorimon put on their jets and flew out. The three of them flew further down towards the abyss before a grey shadow passed by the lead one and it suddenly dropped until it vanished in the darkness below, causing a warning signal to ring.  
"What's wrong!?" The Kaiser was taken aback by what happened as the other two Mechanorimon shared the same fate. "Answer! What happened!?" The warning blares just kept ringing. "What the hell is going on…?"  
"I knew it was impossible to recover it…" Monodramon said. "Just leave it, Osamu-chan."

The Kaiser turned around and began walking away.  
"Where are you going?" Monodramon asked.  
"If that's the case, I'll recover it myself." My eyes widen when he said that. I quickly got in his way.  
"The hell you will!"  
"Get out of my way." He growled with an angry look on his face.  
"No! I-I can't let you go out there… you clearly saw what happened out-"  
"You dare to think you can stop me?" He pushed me aside "You do not order me to do anything." I grabbed him by the shoulder to try and stop him.  
"Osamu! You're my brother! It's too dange-" I stopped talking when his fist hit me square in the face. Usually, my judo training would've kicked in and I could've stopped that punch; but considering it was Osamu throwing the punch, I just froze up and took it. The punch was so hard that I let go and fell on the floor where Wormmon quickly ran over to me.  
"I don't have a brother! You are an only child, Ichijouji! Do you understand!?" He roared with pure hatred in his eyes.  
"I… I… understand, Digimon Kaiser." I softly said. At least that explains why he just calls me Ichijouji now. He marched away and headed down into the hanger. "Monodramon!" I called out to him once the Kaiser was gone. "Get another one of those Mechanorimon ready… just in case.  
"Ken-chan! You…!" Wormmon tried to talk me out of it.  
"I didn't come all this way to watch him die!" I pushed myself off of the floor.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I stood back as Digmon drilled another cage open when I saw the others walking down towards us.  
"Ah, guys!" I waved.  
"Now there's some familiar faces!" Ogremon smirked.  
"Shoot, Ogremon? The Kaiser got ya?" Ross asked.  
"He got lucky, I wasn't ready." Guess he's too proud to admit he was beaten.  
"So, what exactly are you guys doing right now?" Koushiro walked up.  
"We're releasing the captured Digimon!" I informed.  
"Alright, I'll lend you a hand!" Tentomon quickly Armor-Evolved into ForceBeemon and began drilling some other cages so him and Digmon would get done faster.  
"The Kaiser… what is he up to?" Takeru muttered to himself as he looked out that viewing monitor that was in the prison. A few moments later, a dark image begun to come into view. It was an evil looking demon Digimon that clearly got Takeru's attention. "Devimon!?"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser climbed into one of the Mechanorimon in the hanger and flew out towards the dark abyss.  
"Osamu-chan, don't take chances." Monodramon's voice crackled over the radio.  
"Shut up!" After a few moments, he flew down until he encountered the imposing figure of Devimon. However, the demon was missing his bottom half of his body and didn't seem to even be moving. The Kaiser pressed a button and a large vacuum like object popped out and proceeded to extract the data from Devimon. "With this, my original Digimon is complete…" The Kaiser said to himself.  
 _"_ _Do you think you can handle the power of darkness?"_ A dark voice echoed in his mind that did something to him that had never happened to him since he became the Kaiser. It completely unnerved him.  
"Wh-who's that!?"  
 _"_ _Don't underestimate the power of darkness…"_ The voice began to chuckle evilly.  
"I'm hearing things…?" He quickly scoffed but the look on his face said otherwise. "Even if I'm not, it's nonsense. As ruler of the Digital World, there's nothing I can't do." He soon laughed.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

 _"_ _I will obliterate your powers of evil! Come to me, oh holy powers!"  
"Stop! If you do that, you won't get off that easily either!"  
_ _"_ _But there's no other way. Even if this ends up destroying my body…"  
_ _"_ _Angemon!"  
"Devimon. Your evil power has grown far too much. You must be erased from this world!"  
_ _"_ _Angemon!"  
_ _"_ _I'm sorry, Takeru. Heaven's Knuckle!"  
"Fool! That was foolish of you, Angemon!"  
_ _"_ _Angemon…"  
"Takeru. I'm sure we'll meet again. As long as you wish for it."  
_ _"_ _ANGEMON!"_

My mind was just replaying the events of that painful night, over and over again... The night when my innocence died.  
 _"_ _Back then… I desperately wished… that time would go back. But time never goes back. We don't want to, but we have to face reality. In my endless despair, I blamed fate._ I began to feel a rage taking hold of me. All of it directed to Osamu.  
"He doesn't know anything…" I said as I took off my hat. "He doesn't understand anything. Damn it!" I threw my hat to the ground and removed my backpack.  
"Takeru-san…?" Iori questioned.  
"I've had enough. I can't leave it like this. I'll settle this!" I marched away.  
"Takeru, wait!" Patamon followed me.  
"Where are you going?" Iori called out.  
"Forget him. Let him do what he has to do." Ross told him. "Iori-kun, you, Digmon and ForceBeemon continue freeing the prisoners then get out of here. Koushiro, you come with me. I'm gonna look for Ken; you focus on finding the Kaiser's main computer. Steal whatever you can find, battle plans, technical readouts, blueprints; whatever can help us beat him."  
"Right." They headed out as well, leaving Iori with the prisoners.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

I stood in the hanger with Monodramon and Wormmon as the Kaiser returned to the hanger. I was utterly shocked about what he had done at this point now. This was… beyond anything that I was expecting. He was messing with essentially Hell itself. I know the others had said this before but now… now… I truly believe that Osamu… has lost his mind.  
"You…you're back." I said.  
"I told you, the powers of darkness are nothing that I cannot command." He scoffed as he walked past. Those are some pretty famous last words if he isn't careful… though I think he's now beyond that.  
"Please, just don't do anything like that…"  
"I told you never give me orders!" He snapped. "Now follow me… I have what I needed out there… and you really don't want to miss this." He cryptically sneered. We soon returned to this control room where he looks at a display of the base that shows a blinking red light. "So they got inside… when? Oh well, I don't have time for them."

The fortress slowly began moving away from the whirlpool. Good, the further away we are, the better. The screen showed what the original Digimon the Kaiser was creating. The thing was an amalgamation of multiple Digimon. Garurumon's legs, Monochromon's tail, the wings of Airdramon and Angemon, the torso and mouth of Greymon, Kabuterimon's head, four arms which belonged to Kuwagamon, a skeletal arm and two of the demon's arms. Finally, there was MetalGreymon's hair which I couldn't understand why that was there, it was already a nightmare to begin with.  
"Perfect! My original Digimon is now complete!" The Kaiser exclaimed with glee.  
"Hey, do you think the others are upset?" I heard Hikari wondered as a screen showed her with Miyako and Sora, along with Jou who was with MetalSealmon on the ocean below them.  
"Well, I know Daisuke is probably upset." Miyako said.  
"We had no choice." explained Sora.  
"Look!" Nefertimon's voice shouted. I guess they spotted the base.  
"It's coming this way!" Holsmon observed.  
"Be careful, everyone!" warned Robinmon.

"The entire Digital World… will be mine." The Kaiser began to laugh. "I-I can't wait! All of it will be mine! I'll have won! I'll have beaten those annoying insects! They never stood a chance to begin with but… I beat them! Take a good look, Ichijouji and witness my finest hour! And then it will all be mine… my world… my empire… MY CHIMAIRAMON!" He pressed a button in front of him before a gate opened up and that monstrosity flew out. The Kaiser began laughing manically. I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. He had officially lost it… and dare I say it… I now believe the Osamu I once knew to be gone forever; leaving only this evil being. "Time to give him his first snack."  
"Osamu-"  
"I told you not to call me that!" He screamed.  
"D-Digimon Kaiser… don't do this." He laughed once more.  
"You asking me only makes me want to do it more! Chimarimon! Slaughter them all!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Something's coming." Miyako observed. A moment later, her eyes widened. "What is that?!"  
"Ross-san! Look at that!" Koushiro pointed to a monitor as they tried to find the control room.  
"{What the fuck…}" Ross muttered in absolute shock.  
"I've never seen or heard of that Digimon before…" Digmon looked at the monitor and watched Chimairamon fly through the air.  
"We have to do this now!" exclaimed ForceBeemon. "While the others fight him, we have to free the prisoners!"  
"Got it!" Iori nodded.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Red Sun!" Holsmon fried at Chimarimon.  
"That will have no effect against Kabuterimon's metal skull." The Kaiser laughed.  
"Curse of the Queen!" "Cyclone Burst!" Both Nefertimon and Robinmon's attacks were easily dodged.  
"With Angemon and Airdramon's wings, his movement is swift. Now it's our turn." Oh, gods, please get away you guys. They moved out of the way but Miyako and Holsmon were swiped by Chimarimon's tail.  
"Miyako-san! No!" I couldn't help but blurt out.  
"Enjoying the show?" He taunted. "Garurumon's legs and Monochromon's tail…" Chimarimon began swiping at Nefertimon and Robinmon. "Kuwagamon, SkullGreymon and Devimon's arms… Greymon's body and MetalGreymon's hair… Well? Isn't the Digimon I created amazing?" How could this… monster… even be my brother? These are people's lives he's laughing at! I watched as Holsmon fall towards the ocean but quickly recover before they fell in. MetalSealmon tried to fire one of his Hydro Sphere's but Chimarimon fired a devastating energy blast out of his mouth forcing them to dive underwater just to avoid the devastating attack.  
"What's with that thing!?" Miyako questioned. The Kaiser laughed even harder.  
"Just as I expected! This is the perfect Digimon partner I was looking for." He then turned to Monodramon. "Unlike you." I don't know if his heart just broke there, but I know mine did as I began feeling tears running down my cheeks.  
"Ken-chan…" Wormmon sadly whispered.

"Now if you'll excuse me… I have pest problem in here that needs exterminating." The Kaiser got up and walked out of the room with Monodramon still following him. I still can't believe that after everything that he's still loyal. I was left alone to watch the carnage on the screens before I heard some footsteps approaching.  
"Clear!" I saw Ross charge in with Guilmon and Koushiro right behind him.  
"Guys…" I said.  
"There you are." Ross walked up to me. "This the control room?" I nodded. He sounded like he was getting straight to the point. "Okay, Brainiac, you're up." Koushiro walked up to the holo-computer and plugged in his laptop.  
"No protections… big mistake on the Kaiser's part."  
"I don't think he expected us to get in here." Guilmon believed.  
"Okay, I'm downloading everything I can get."

"Hey, where's the Kaiser?" Ross asked me.  
"Looking for you guys."  
"He'll probably find Takeru… Iori should be freeing the last of the prisoners and trying to find a way out."  
"I see… listen-"  
"Don't worry about it. We all understood. If Taichi was the Kaiser or Hikari the Kaiserin, I would've done the same."  
"Koushiro-san, make sure you get everything you can about Chimairamon." I told him.  
"Is that what that thing is? Alright… hopefully, we can find his weakness as well as a way to take this place down." A few moments later, he unplugged his laptop. "Done! Let's get out while we can!"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Takeru, you can settle this later! Now we have other things to do!" Patamon was trying to get my attention but I was just ignoring him. I marched through the cold hallways until I saw a dark shadow approaching. It turned the corner and revealed to be the Kaiser.  
"You have some guts… Creeping into the fortress of the Digimon Kaiser, who controls the power of darkness…" I growled for a moment before I couldn't help but laugh at that last phrase. "What?" Oh, that clearly stung his ego.  
"Ichijouji-san… how long are you going to play 'ruler of the world'? Is it fun? But do you know what that power of darkness you keep talking about means?" His eyes widened. "You don't, do you? You're meddling with powers you cannot possibly comprehend. You won't just get hurt. It's about time you grew up, huh?" He scowled for a moment as he clearly was trying to think of something to say.  
"You're insects!" He finally shouted. "You're insects! Insects, insects, insects!" He's clearly fallen apart.  
"Is that all you can say?"  
"Sh-shut up!" He swung his whip and it struck me in the face.

I didn't even flinch. I just kept staring at him while my cheek hurt. I raised my hand up to where he struck me and saw some blood on my fingers indicating that he did indeed draw blood.  
"Can't win with words, so you resort to violence, huh?" Sure, I'm poking the hornets' nest, but the look on his face… it's incredibility satisfying.  
"N-no…" He actually stepped back. Have I now terrified him? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  
"Hm? No? Well, it doesn't matter… Are you done?" He said nothing. "Well, then… it's my turn." I charged him and punched him in the face, knocking him onto the floor.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Digimon that were outside fighting Chimairamon left their human partners on the small island that Iori had the escaping Digimon wait on.  
"Be careful, you guys!" Hikari warned as the flying Digimon headed back into the fight. All the while, it appears that ForceBeemon had drawn the short straw and had all the monstrous Digimon's attention. ForceBeemon managed to dodge the devastating Heat Viper attack but the blast shot all the way back towards the base and rocked it. This caused Takeru to fall over after he had pinned the Kaiser to the floor and was wailing on him. The Kaiser threw him off and grabbed for his whip and turned around to strike him with it. However, Takeru caught it in his hand and gave a smug smile.  
"What!?" The Kaiser exclaimed before Takeru jumped him again.  
"Tempest Wing!" "Rosetta Stone!" "Metal Wing!" "Beam Drill!" "Hydro Sphere!" All five attacks didn't even leave a scratch on the rampaging abomination.  
"What do we do?" Holsmon asked before he was hit with one of the Devimon arms and crashed along the deck of the base.

"Fire Breath!" Monodramon yelled out as he jumped towards the brawl.  
"Air Shot!" Patamon responded and the attacks nullified each other. "Wanna fight?"  
"If you hurt Osamu-chan, yes!" The two proceeded to stare each other down.  
"Holsmon!" Nefertimon flew up to him as Chimairamon was bearing down on them. She pushed him out of the way and a powerful Heat Viper tore a massive hole through the base, just right near Takeru and the Kaiser.  
"What the!?" Takeru soon got a good glimpse of the attacking Digimon.  
"It's the Digimon I created, Chimairamon. Isn't it amazing? You guys will never be able to defeat him!" The Kaiser coughed as Takeru still was on top of him. Outside, Chimairamon had all four flying Digimon in his hands and was trying to crush the life out of them.  
"Takeru!" Patamon got his partner's attention.  
"Right! Digimental Up!"  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!" Takeru hopped on and took off out of the hole but not before he saw Ken's D-3 on the floor. He briefly wondered why the Kaiser had it on him before he decided to focus on other things and just took it with him.  
"Ichijouji! We'll finish this next time!"  
"Osamu-chan…" Monodramon walked up to him.  
"Insects…" The Kaiser muttered as he got up and walked away.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Guys!" I yelled at the others who were flying out of a different section of the base on Waibanmon.  
"Takeru-kun! Have you seen that thing?" Koushiro shouted, referring to Chimairamon.  
"Yeah, kinda of. I was a bit more busy beating up the Kaiser… eh, sorry, Ken-kun. By the way, I found your D-3!" I apologized.  
"Oh, don't worry about it! He deserves it! I'll explain later! And thanks!" He told me.  
"Silver Blaze!" "Waiban Flame!" Our Digimon attacked and struck the hands of Chimairamon which freed the captured Digimon.  
"Thank you all." Nefertimon gave her thanks. We all looked to the large Digimon and saw that he wasn't moving.  
"Chimairamon stopped attacking. It's our chance to retreat!" I informed. Everyone nodded with me and fled away to regroup with the others.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We regrouped with everyone else on a small moving island before we returned to the mainland as Fortress Gotha was coming back from the ocean. The Digimon we rescued split up after thanking us and went out to spread the word and give warnings about the weapon in the Digimon Kaiser's arsenal. Daisuke was still steaming at us for leaving him behind but Taichi cooled him down as he repeatedly pointed out that they wouldn't have done much.  
"Takeru-san, here." Iori handed Takeru his hat and backpack that he left down in the prison level.  
"Thanks." I don't know what really went on through Takeru's head at that time… but I'd had an idea. However, I didn't bother bringing it up as it was more or less none of my business, hence why I let him go alone in the base.

"All that…" Yamato said.  
"Dammit!" Daisuke punched the ground.  
"That thing… was the most terrifying thing I've seen, and I'm including our previous adventures." admitted Jou.  
"Well, right now, all we can do is rest for the moment then go back after the Kaiser!" Taichi gave our next plan of attack. "And this time we'll have everyone fighting that beast!"  
"Yeah!" We all cheered.

"Ken-kun, are you…" I put a hand on his shoulder as he continued to stare at his D-3 that Takeru handed him back.  
"'Return the one who has fallen to the darkness back to his true self.'" He repeated Wizarmon's warning. "I… I was so obsessed with that line because I thought that meant that I was right to believe that the Osamu I knew was still out there, that all these actions were not of his own mindset, you know? I sadly was proven wrong, and stupidly ran off not truly thinking." He sighed. "I'm not making that same mistake again."  
"That meaning?" Takeru asked.  
"No matter what we do… I'm no longer gonna hold back the next time we fight the Kaiser. We're gonna stop him no matter what. If that requires hurting Osamu… I won't hesitate." He declared. We all quietly nodded our heads. It must have taken everything for him to say that, but he's right. We're gonna stop the Kaiser once and for all. This ends one way or the other; with our victory or our death.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Um, this place…" Jun turned to look at the elderly couple who drove her to the lake.  
"It's Lake Hamana." The woman said.  
"But I said Lake Yamanaka…" Jun groaned. "Yamato-kun!" She shouted. She thought she was having it rougher than her brother at the moment.

If she had known the truth, she would never even dare think the idea…

* * *

After everything that has just and will soon happen, a little humorous moment with Jun seemed right.

Plus... Osamu thought that this was his finest moment... but in reality, it was Takeru's who took a level in badass! He certainly has grown up before our eyes, hasn't he?

Things are getting really hectic now, but I'm going to tell you all that I'm going on a real short hiatus as I'm going to do a quick one shot that should be up tomorrow. Feel free to enjoy **_Once in a Lifetime_** , and take care.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	26. Transcendent Evolution!

Sorry for the real late hour of submitting this. I just started it today and finished it all a few minutes ago.

Shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **GreenD109** for the reviews.

Also, today is the 29th of January... and Kingdom Hearts III has finally come out! I swear, before this year ends, I will have PS4 and that game along with Ace Combat 7. I will regain my childhood!

* * *

 **Chapter 25: Transcendent Evolution! The Digimental of Miracles!**

 _Digital World. August 9th, 2002. 0053 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

After we got back to the mainland, we proceeded to go further inland before we decided to rest in the hills not too far away from a town near the desert. Thanks to our efforts in freeing the prisoners, word was quickly beginning to spread about Chimairamon. Ogremon was actually in the town earlier before sunset where he gave out the warning that Fortress Gotha was on the way. The townsfolk seemed to have been prepared for this as they quickly evacuated and headed for the hills, leaving only a ghost town in their wake. During the same time, we took the opportunity to get as much sleep as we could. It was almost one when we heard rumbling which meant only one thing: the Kaiser had arrived.

All of us looked down at the town and saw Chimairamon flying high above the town with the Kaiser's fortress following right behind him. The fortress was leaving Dark Towers behind every few dozen meters, which explained why the towers we were finding were like a line of telephone poles. We sat back and watched as Chimairamon utterly laid waste to the town; burning anything that was standing. Thank goodness the town was warned and evacuated; they never would've gotten a warning when Chimairamon showed up. After a few minutes of bombing, there was nothing left but ruins and Fortress Gotha planted multiple Dark Towers as it just hovered by.

"Damn… that Chimairamon…" Daisuke growled. "How long is he going to keep this up?"  
"He won't stop until he has destroyed everything, will he?" Iori asked.  
"No idea… We all thought his plan was to just conquer the Digital World…" Hikari began to speak.  
"But it looks more like he'd rather just destroy everything now. Better to rule nothing but ash then lose." Taichi concluded.  
"That thing is absolutely terrifying." Sora said.  
"Unforgivable…" Takeru muttered. "It's unforgivable that he created that Digimon!"  
"We have to stop him somehow… with our own hands." determined Yamato.  
"And fast, if things were already bad, now it turns out Fortress Gotha is Dark Tower factory and it's running on full tilt." I observed.  
"If we don't stop him, not only will the Digital World be in ruins, but we won't be able to take a step without running into a Dark Tower." Jou believed.  
"But… can we really beat him?" Miyako was expressing some doubt.  
"Don't anyone dare start believing we can't do this! We haven't come this far only to be stopped by him now! We'll beat the Kaiser if it's the last thing we do!" Mimi exclaimed. Back off, fellas, that's my girl!

"Our biggest problem is that facing off against Chimairamon head-on is almost suicide, we just don't have the strength to take him on." Ken reminded. "Koushiro-san, I hope you've been thinking of a plan."  
"Well, I've been going over the data that I stole from the Kaiser's base and… it's certainly quite the read."  
"Quit idolizing him and tell us how we can beat him!" Daisuke shouted.  
"As of right now, only one thing comes to mind. If we had the time and the resources, we could create our own powerful Digimon to counter Chimairamon…"  
"Which as you said, we don't have the time or the resources." Jou pointed out.  
"Not to mention none of us would really go along with creating our own monster just to fight." Takeru reminded.  
"Yeah, even if we didn't create an evil abomination but rather a creature to serve as a force of good, we're not gonna play God here." I added.  
"Yeah, none of us are that arrogant as he is being now." Taichi said.  
"Then, I've got nothing!" Koushiro threw his hands up away from his laptop. "I've looked over all the files that the Kaiser had about Chimairamon and we don't stand a chance in our current situation! He's designed this thing to be invincible to anything we can throw at him!" He sighed. "We just don't have the strength to defeat him…"

"Maybe then we need to look at this from a different angle." Yamato believed. We all turned to look at him.  
"How do you mean, Yamato-san?" Hikari wondered.  
"Okay, so Chimairamon has clearly got us beat in terms of firepower, even if all thirteen of our Digimon attacked. But what about the fortress? We could really slow down the Kaiser if we took that out." Our eyes widened.  
"Onii-chan… that's brilliant!" Takeru cried.  
"You're right, Yamato-san." Koushiro typed away at his computer. "We might actually be able to win if we could first stop the fortress!"  
"Okay, easier said than done, that place is huge! How do we bring it down?" questioned Miyako.  
"I suppose the easiest way to hurt it would be from the inside."  
"Which means we have to get back in there." Sora nodded.  
"All without drawing Chimairamon's attention." Mimi added.

"So… that means that a diversion would be needed… to keep Chimairamon and the Kaiser distracted while a group goes inside to take down the fortress." Taichi gave a suggestion to the plan we were beginning to come up with.  
"Huh… this might work…" Koushiro sounded interested in something he found. "Apparently, we might only need to do one thing and the whole place would come down."  
"How?" Jou asked as Ken looked over Koushiro's shoulder to the screen.  
"Of course… it appears that the Kaiser found some black object before he built the base that radiated energy which he harnessed to be used as the power source of his base! There was a large reactor room in between the large stairwells!"  
"Oh, the place was like the Death Star to begin with!" I exclaimed. "We take out the reactor core, the whole place goes up!"  
"Well, now we got a plan, but how do we get back in there?" Daisuke inquired.

"Could we use that pipeline?" Iori finally spoke after being silent for a while.  
"Pipeline?" Hikari repeated before we all saw what he was seeing. Indeed there was a large pipeline that ran across the desert.  
"Where does it come from?" Sora asked.  
"Let's see…" Koushiro typed away at his computer once more. "Right, it's from that undersea oil rig."  
"The same one Iori-kun found his Digimental." remembered Jou.  
"Pipeline… oil… That's it!"  
"You thought of something?" Taichi tapped him on the shoulder.  
"If it works, we might be able to stop the moving fortress. I think this might actually work…"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Back in his fortress, the Kaiser was standing close to the screen and witnessing the absolute carnage that Chimairamon was delivering. It brought a twisted joy to him which caused him to laugh manically.  
"Good… Run… be afraid… The Digital World is practically in my hands!" The Kaiser laughed once more.  
"Osamu-chan…" Monodramon whispered to himself. _"Is this what you want? Is this really it?"_ The Kaiser calmed back down after laughing. At this moment, he felt pretty confident in himself. Chimairamon was practically invincible against anything the Chosen Children could throw at him. It would only be a matter of time before the entire Digital World would bend its knee to him. To him, the Chosen Children had two options left now: either fight and die, or get smart, leave the Digital World with their Digimon, and never come back.

The thought of victory brought great pleasure to his mind and he soon began to chuckle once more… until he heard someone else chuckle at the same time… and it sounded exactly like the same dark voice he heard in the Dark Whirlpool. His eyes widened before he fell onto his knees as he felt a pain in his chest, like an icy hand was gripping his heart and slowly tightening it.  
"Osamu-chan! What's wrong?" Monodramon ran up to him.  
"Nothing!" The Kaiser lied as he was trying to hide his moment of weakness. He panted as he tried to catch his breath while sweat was slowly dripping down from his head.  
"You should rest. You've been attacking all night… plus, maybe get something to eat and drink maybe…?" Monodramon was still greatly concerned by how much the Kaiser had been rejecting his own body. His obsession with creating Chimairamon had slowly been draining his life.  
"I'm fine…"

The Kaiser continued to pant and recover but the voice began chuckling again.  
 _"_ _You cannot run away from the Dark World anymore…"  
_ "What!?" The Kaiser exclaimed.  
"Osamu-chan, what's wrong?" Monodramon questioned as it appeared that the Kaiser was talking to himself now.  
 _"_ _Look below you…"_ The Kaiser looked down and his face turned into one of horror as he saw no floor underneath him but rather a whole that lead to a pitch black abyss below. The Kaiser screamed in terror.  
"Osamu-chan!" Monodramon tried to bring him back to reality, which it did. "Osamu-chan, are you okay? Osamu-chan!" The Kaiser recovered quickly and masked his fear with a look of insanity before he began laughing like he had now truly lost his mind.  
"Go, Chimairamon." He looked to the screen and saw his fortress sailing across the sands. "I will indeed become the ruler of this Digital World."

Back at the pipeline, Taichi, Yamato, Ross, Koushiro and their respective partners were sneaking up to a valve in the pipeline that was next to an extraction pipe.  
"Okay, we're here." Agumon observed.  
"You sure this is gonna work, Koushiro?" Gabumon wondered.  
"Of course it will, you don't need to doubt Koushiro-han!" Tentomon gave his faith.  
"I agree but we need to time this just right." Guilmon added. All of them peaked their heads over the pipe and saw that the fortress was slowly approaching.  
"Okay, let's quickly go over the plan before we do this." Koushiro whispered. "We release the oil in the pipe and let it cover the fortress, then we use our Digimon to light it causing a massive fire."  
"That should distract the Kaiser long enough for the New Breed to sneak in and take out the core". Ross recounted the earlier plan.  
"Meanwhile, we regroup with Jou and the girls, then take on Chimairamon, buying the others as much time as they need." Yamato recalled their part.  
"No heroics, okay? Don't try to risk yourselves too much, just keep Chimairamon's attention." Taichi said. The Digimon quickly nodded.

The group stayed quiet for a few moments as Chimairamon flew over them, unaware of their presence.  
"Now!" The Digimon quietly exclaimed before they jumped on the pipe and turned the valve. The extraction pipe opened up and a large tower of oil shot upward and began pelting the fortress.  
"Baby Flame!" "Petit Fire!" "Fireball!" "Petit Thunder!" The attacks ignited the oil and soon flames began covering the fortress as it sailed over the flume of fire. Warning sirens began ringing in the base.  
"How did that fire…?" The Kaiser questioned. "Hurry up and put it out!" He ordered Monodramon and any controlled Digimon he had in the base. The fires soon went out and the boys all watched as the fortress flew away.  
"Well, we gave them the window." Koushiro said.  
"Now, we just gotta hope they can do it." Ross nodded.  
"Will they be okay?" Yamato asked. "I mean, attacking the stronghold like that…"  
"All we can do is pray and believe in them. Come on, let's regroup with Jou, Sora, and Mimi and buy the others time." Taichi said as they all took off.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

We all watched on a cliffside the fiery fortress slowly moving by us as we waited for the right moment to get in. We sat on or stood next to our Digimon as we waited. I quickly looked to my hands and tightened my hand on my D-Terminal. Thank goodness for Takeo staying behind. He went by my house, picked up my D-Terminal and went back to HQ before Taichi quickly went back to the Real World the previous night to pick it up and hand it to me several hours ago. Without it, Wormmon was not going to evolve with those towers and the Dark Digivice, and that wasn't going to help anyone.

"Okay, while the Kaiser's busy, we'll charge in!" Daisuke went over the plan one more time as we could hear alarms ringing from inside the base.  
"That's the entrance to the fortress." Iori pointed to a doorway that had a platform underneath it on the side of the base.  
"Let's go, Lighdramon!" Daisuke shouted as they jumped down onto the platform. "I'm the first!" He yelled back at us.  
"He's perfect for leading the charge, huh?" Takeru admitted.  
"He's so silly…" Miyako rolled her eyes.  
"Come on, we've only got one chance!" I informed.  
"Right, let's go everyone!" Hikari said and we all followed Daisuke inside.

We all quickly walked through a stone tunnel as we got deeper and deeper inside the base. Before long, there was a bright light ahead of us. At the same time, we began hearing faint explosions from the outside which meant that the others were beginning the attack. Hang on, you guys, we're gonna try to be as fast as possible.  
"It's the next entrance." believed Daisuke. Another couple of meters, the light died down and we could better see what we just walked into. "Wh-what the?" We walked into this large empty room with a large opening towards the reactor. Both Miyako and Daisuke looked up at the power spire at the center of the base before looking down and that area where the power source must be at the lower part of the spire.  
"That's it! That's the power room!" I exclaimed.  
"Alright, if we go there we can stop this huge thing."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The Kaiser watched the screens closely as he saw seven of the Chosen Children currently engaged with Chimairamon but the other six were still missing. He got his answer quickly when Monodramon spotted them on another monitor.  
"Osamu-chan, it's them!"  
"They're back? I guess we better welcome them…"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Okay, let's go!" Daisuke said and we turned to find a way down. However once we turned, we saw one of the doors open and a swarm of Bakemon with Evil Rings came out to greet us.  
"That's quite the welcoming party." Iori observed.  
"Sure is." Hikari agreed.  
"But… They won't get in the way!" Daisuke declared.  
"Blue Thunder!" Lighdramon struck three of the Bakemon that was fast approaching him.  
"Gold Rush!" Digmon dealt with the seven Bakemon that was spinning around him.  
"Red Sun!" Six Bakemon that were bearing down on Holsmon were taken care of in short order.  
"Teter Spin!" Tetermon spun through a line of eight Bakemon and destroyed all their Evil Rings.  
"Nile Jewelry!" Nefertimon took care of the six Bakemon that were coming after her.  
"Needle Rain!" Pegasmon dealt with the final nine Bakemon that were attacking.  
"Okay, let's hurry!" Daisuke motioned and led us out of the room and towards the reactor.

After running through a few corridors, we came across this large room with some crates on the sides.  
"This looks like a hanger…" Iori looked around.  
"It's as big as a soccer field…" Daisuke guessed. The whole base slowly began to rock and we looked up to see the roof cracking. "What's that?" As if we didn't know… in came Chimairamon. That was a bit surprising though… The Kaiser actually ordered him to knock a huge hole in the base just to get us? "Chimairamon…" Once he said that, a large group of Bakemon also flew into the hanger. I guess the Kaiser just wants us destroyed more than the others.

"We were so close to the power room…" Takeru cursed.  
"Daisuke, get off and hide." Lighdramon advised.  
"Eh?" We all looked at him.  
"Chimairamon's powerful. If we don't combine our powers, it will be impossible."  
"Takeru, leave this to us." Now, Pegasmon gave the same instruction.  
"Pegasmon…" Takeru muttered.  
"Don't worry, Hikari." Nefertimon tried to assure her partner.  
"But…"  
"It's alright, dagyaa!" "Miyako-san, hurry!" Digmon and Holsmon chimed in.  
"Okay." Both human partners replied.  
"Tetermon…?" I asked.  
"I won't allow you to get hurt, Ken-chan." I nodded and joined the others as we took cover.  
"We're counting on you, guys!" informed Daisuke.

"Let's go!" Lighdramon shouted to the other Digimon and they charged straight ahead. The Bakemon moved first and the Digimon just repeated what they did before with the Bakemon, all the while Chimairamon just stood there and stared ahead.  
"That's it!" Daisuke cheered in terms of our Digimon winning over the Bakemon. Our cheer was quickly replaced with fear as Iori gasped and pointed towards several Bakemon that were spinning towards us.  
"Gold Rush!" Digmon was quick with the save and knocked the Bakemon away from us before they could do any harm.  
"Thanks, Digmon!" Iori spoke for all of us. We owed Digmon for that save. However, things would take a dark turn fast. The remaining Digimon jumped forward to try to attack Chimairamon but he open his mouth and unleashed that devastating Heat Viper attack that completely disintegrated several Bakemon that were unfortunate to get in the way! Our Digimon barely got out of the way but the sheer close proximity was enough to blow them away towards the walls which they hit, hard.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"What power…" Daisuke muttered in both shock and awe.  
"Even though they dodge it!" Hikari cried.  
"He doesn't care about attacking his own…" Takeru said in terms of the Bakemon that were destroyed in the attack.  
"Osamu-chan, if he keeps doing that, he'll destroy the fortress!" Monodramon tried to explain to the Kaiser.  
"I know!"  
"Blue Thunder!" "Gold Rush!" "Tempest Wing!" "Precision Sting!" "Shooting Star!" "Rosetta Stone!" All the Digimon's attacks hit Chimairamon and engulfed him in smoke.  
"Did we do it?" questioned Daisuke. The smoke cleared and revealed Chimairamon didn't even have a scratch on him. All he did was just roar an ear shattering roar that practically rocked the foundations of the fortress.

"Their attacks didn't work!" Hikari exclaimed.  
"What a beast…" Daisuke said.  
"Even all of them attacking at once didn't scratch him…" Miyako groaned.  
"He's strong… he's too strong!" worried Iori.  
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Takeru wondered.  
"I don't know… I'm trying to think of something but I'm coming up blank!" Ken told the others. Chimairamon launched another Heat Viper attack which the Digimon avoided once more but the shock wave blew them all against the wall again. Chimairamon soon began just unleashing wave after wave of Heat Vipers which continually knocked around the Digimon.  
"At this rate, they're just wasting their power!" Hikari feared.

"I can't, dagyaa…" Digmon muttered as he was knocked into a bunch of crates before he devolved all the way back to Upamon.  
"Upamon!" Iori cried out. The rest of the Digimon began to follow suit.  
"My power…"  
"Poromon!"  
"Ken…chan…"  
"Wormmon!"  
"Daisuke… I'm sorry."  
"Chibimon!"  
"I can't go on…" "Gah…"  
"Tailmon!" "Patamon!"

The Kaiser kept watch on the battle inside the fortress while wondering why the ones outside were keeping back. It didn't matter to him though, let them stay outside and worry for their friends inside. However, his eyes slowly widened when he looked at the three Baby-Level Digimon.  
"Those little ones… I've seen them before…" He muttered. His mind suddenly flashed to the soccer game he attended a few days before he abandoned the life of Osamu Ichijouji. He remembered seeing the Digimon in the stands with the Chosen Children that attended the game. "That time…?"  
"Their bodies can't take attacks like that." Monodramon explained.  
"What?" He turned to look at Monodramon before looking back to the screen. "Their bodies…? They're alive?" He looked so conflicted for a moment before he sighed. "Chimairamon, stop the attack!" He ordered. The abomination suddenly stopped.  
"Chimairamon… stopped." Takeru observed.  
"What does it mean?" Daisuke wondered.  
"Let's go get everyone now!" Hikari advised and the children ran out of cover to grab their Digimon.  
"Those guys… I'll take them down with my own hands." The Kaiser walked out of the control room.  
"Osamu-chan…"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Let's escape." Takeru suggested as we ran back in to cover with our Digimon.  
"Escape?" I questioned.  
"We can't fight anymore. Our mission has failed. We'll retreat and wait for another chance."  
"You're right. We have no other choice." Hikari agreed with Takeru.  
"Understood." Iori nodded.  
"No." I said, utterly surprising everyone. "We can't just say 'another chance' like that. If we leave now, they'll keep attacking anything in sight." I turned to look at Chimairamon who was still staying still. "We don't know if we'll be able to get in the fortress again. So this is our only chance!"  
"That's crazy…" Miyako told him. "They're all back to their Baby-Levels…"  
"Daisuke…" Chibimon spoke up from in my arms.  
"But… didn't you all see it? Destroying those towns… and all we could do was watch quietly. Sure, the town was evacuated, but what about the next one that doesn't get a warning or what about what happened to those Bakemon? I don't want to see that ever again. I won't let them do whatever they want! So I'm going, even alone. I won't give up now. After getting this far, all I can do is go forward!" I declared, even if it was practically suicidal.

After a few moments of silence, Chibimon climbed onto my head.  
"Let's go, Daisuke."  
"Chibimon…"  
"If you're going, I'm going too!"  
"Alright!"  
"Daisuke!" Ken shouted. "I'm… I'm coming with you!" Everyone was taken aback again.  
"Ken-kun…" Miyako muttered.  
"I came here to bring my brother back… and I'll be damned to back down now! Wormmon!"  
"I'll follow you anywhere, Ken-chan!" I smiled and nodded.  
"Let's go! Chibimon, hold on tight" I ran for chain pulley and dropped down to the power room with Ken following close behind.

After getting down to the platform that leads to the room, I jumped… but was too short in the jump and missed it. I thought for a second that this was how it all ended. Gives a whole big speech then does something cool, only to mistime a jump and fall to my death.  
"Daisuke!" I felt Ken grabbing me before I could actually start falling. I looked down and saw a pretty dark floor before looking back up at Ken.  
"Thanks!"  
"Hey, I'm not gonna let my best friend die like that." Best friend? I think that's the first time he's said that. He quickly pulled me up to safety.  
"Phew, that was close…"  
"Be careful, Daisuke!" Chibimon reminded.  
"Come on, we're almost there!" insisted Wormmon.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Daisuke and Ken's acts of bravery proved to be the spark the others needed to get their confidence back.  
"Let's go too." Takeru said.  
"Yes." Iori nodded.  
"We can't let Daisuke-kun and Ken-kun be the only ones who looks cool!" Miyako joked.  
"They're really leading the charge." Hikari believed. The four of them started running towards the chain but the Kaiser soon walked into the stairwell and saw them running down below.  
"Chimairamon, resume attack!"  
"Digimon Kaiser!?" Takeru exclaimed. They all turned to the Digimon abomination but the monster was just standing still. It quickly looked back to the Chosen Children before it flew back out the hole it made earlier.

"Where are you going, Chimairamon!?" The Kaiser demanded. "Chimairamon!" Suddenly, the monster began laughing that same voice that had been taunting the Kaiser earlier as it flew away. The Kaiser's eyes shrunk in fear before that same pain from earlier returned and he fell to the floor.  
"That voice…?" Takeru questioned.  
"Osamu-chan! Osamu-chan, hang in there!" Monodramon tried to help.  
"Shut up!" He shouted. _"I'm not afraid… the power of darkness doesn't scare me… I am the ruler of this world! Even the power of darkness is under my command…"  
_ _"_ _I knew it… I should have tried harder to stop him from recovering that dark data…"_ Monodramon thought to himself. _"I'm the only one who can protect Ken-chan, and yet…"  
_ "He tried to use the power of darkness, but ended up being used himself." Takeru explained to the others. "Alright! Let's get to the power room now!"

"Contact!" Ross shouted as the Old Breed spotted Chimairamon leaving the base.  
"Alright everyone, let's attack again!" Taichi ordered.  
"Hope the others are okay…" Sora worried.  
"Don't worry, if they were killed, I'm pretty sure the Kaiser would be bragging right now." Yamato believed which made the others agree with him. Everyone quickly refocused their efforts to attacking the monster while the desert was completely dark as it was just before the dawn.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Both Daisuke and I stared at the power room for a moment before we got ready to charge it. However, our path would be blocked as Monodramon glided down in front of us.  
"Hey, you're… the Digimon Kaiser's…" Daisuke tried to quickly piece things together.  
"Monodramon…" I muttered as I thought that he was actually going to fight us.  
"This way." He turned and motioned us to follow him. "Hurry! The power room is just right here!"  
"Why are you helping us? You're leading us to a trap, huh?" Daisuke accused.  
"No, Daisuke. He's not." He looked at me with a confused look. "I'd trust him with my life." Daisuke's eyes widened for a second before he regained his determined look and nodded in agreement.  
"I just want to help Osamu-chan." Monodramon explained. "Chimairamon is terrifying… and he can't be controlled, though Osamu-chan refuses to realize it! Since he brought him to life, I feel like Osamu-chan is going to a place where he can't be reached. If we don't defeat that… that thing, I'm sure we'll reach a point of no return. Please… help me! Trust me!"

"Got it." Daisuke understood. Monodramon was surprised by the answer.  
"Thanks… Come on, this way!" We ran into the room and the whole place was moving as if there was a massive heat wave even though the room was actually cool.  
"What's that…?" Chibimon wondered at the black object that was in front of us that stood on a metallic pedestal at the center of the room. "It's like this place is filled with an incredible energy…"  
"What's going on?" Daisuke questioned.  
"It's coming from that black thing." Wormmon said.  
"Osamu-chan found it. It's what makes the fortress move." Just like Koushiro's note said.  
"Then, if we remove this, the fortress should stop, right?" Daisuke wondered.  
"Should be." I guessed.

 _"_ _Ken…"_ My eyes widened when I heard that voice… it couldn't possibly be… I turned around to look at the closed door behind us, half-expecting the Kaiser to just walk in. Instead, I was greeted by the ghostly apparition of Osamu that walked straight through the closed door. It looked like him the last time I saw him in the Real World before I discovered he was the Kaiser, however his outfit was something different. It was a large white armor that somewhat resembled the Kaiser's outfit, but looked more fitting for a protector than a tyrant.  
 _"_ _Os-Osamu?"_ I thought.  
 _"_ _Hello, Ken. I'd love to speak to you more but time is short… the thing in front of you, you and Daisuke need to take it. Take and use it, its only thing that can stop Chimairamon and free me from the darkness that I've fallen under."  
"So the message was true…"  
_ _"'_ _Compassion will release the golden light.'"_ Osamu repeated the message that Wizarmon said. _"Only you two can release it."  
_ _"_ _I understand."  
_ _"_ _And Ken… bring me back home, would ya?"  
_ _"_ _I promise you, I won't fail you, Onii-san."  
"I know you won't. You're my little brother after all."_

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Hey, Ken!" I shoved Ken as he was staring out into space behind us. When I pushed him, he seemed to have come back to reality.  
"Wha-?"  
"Hey, don't you go falling apart on me now."  
"I don't… di- did you hear that?"  
"Hear what? Stop acting craz-"  
 _"_ _Daisuke…"_ I heard a voice in my head. I turned to the black object where I assumed the voice came from. _"Free me… help free me… trust in Ken… and Osamu…"  
_ "Never mind what I just said, Ken. I hear it too."  
"What exactly is this thing?" We walked up to it.  
"I don't know, but I heard it say 'Free me.'" Suddenly the black object began rising off the pedestal. Then all the lights went out. Pretty sure everyone noticed that.

The pitch blackness of the room was soon destroyed as the object began exploding with rays of golden light that was almost blinding.  
"Daisuke, look!" Chibimon jumped off of my head and onto the ground. The black thing suddenly flashed a light blueish object that looked like one of those crests the others had. Except this one was one I never saw before as it was a sun shape that had a crescent moon underneath it. A moment later, Chibimon evolved back into V-mon and even he was surprised.  
"You evolved… buy why?" I questioned. The light grew even brighter and we all had to avert our eyes. The light soon died down and we could see all the metal of the room around us was now gone. The blackness began to fade away and now it was a golden object… a familiar object.  
"That…!" Ken began to speak but couldn't find the words.  
"A golden Digimental…" I helped finish the sentence for him.  
 _"_ _Free me…"_ There's that voice again.

"Daisuke… we grab on three, okay?"  
"Wait… this Digimental? It's…?"  
"Ours. On three."  
"One… two… three!" We shouted as we grabbed it and pulled it back. It split in half like the early Digimentals but then restored itself like before. I turned to V-mon.  
"V-mon. Should we try?"  
"Yeah!"  
"Wormmon?" Ken asked.  
"Let's do this!" Ken and I both looked at each other and nodded in perfect sync.  
"Digimental Up!" We shouted.  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Radiance of Miracles, MAGNAMON!"  
"Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Illumination of Miracles, KONGOUMON!"

Wow… just… wow… Those two Armor-Evolved… and looked amazing. Magnamon looked like Fladramon had traded his armor and upgraded to sharper, golden plates. Kongoumon looked like a golden beetle with a sumo-wrestler sash around his waist and six arms all carrying those Indian Vajras.  
"Amazing…" Both Ken and I muttered.  
"Incredible." Monodramon was also impressed.

Call me crazy, but I think we're about to win this war…

* * *

Let's be honest, this scene was already badass to begin with.

The Crest of Compassion that's on the Digimental is designed by **SailorTrekkie92** on DeviantArt. Oh, and this may just be me playing too much Old Republic but I honestly think that Osamu would look cool in Valkorion's armor, which is what phantom Osamu is wearing.

See you all for the next chapter... which we all know how it's gonna end... at least it ain't Wormmon though.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	27. The Kaiser's End! Monodramon!

Ladies and Gentleman... here's the chapter and episode that always makes me cry, not matter which Digimon makes the ultimate choice.

Shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** and **Whiteling** for the reviews.

Now, let's end this war, once and for all!

* * *

 **Chapter 26: The Kaiser's End! Monodramon!**

 _Digital World. August 9th, 2002. 0623 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

The 'Radiance and Illumination of Miracles.' That was the title our two Digimon declared once they armored evolved into these gold forms. I guess this definitely was a miracle as it looked like these two Digimon might actually be able to beat Chimairamon… though it's still anyone's guess. But I get the feeling we might be able to pull it off.  
"Ma-Magnamon…" "Kon- Kongoumon…" Both Ken and I muttered the names of our two Digimon.  
"M-my power…" "My power is back!" We actually heard Poromon's and Upamon's voices from a few levels above us. Now without the sound of the power rumbling through the fortress, it was actually kinda of silent. "Poromon, Evolve! HAWKMON!" "Upamon, Evolve! ARMADIMON!" Sounds like whatever power these guys are radiating off, it's restoring the strength of the others.  
"What's that? I've never seen Digimon like them before!" Miyako exclaimed.  
"A new Armor-Evolution?" claimed Iori.  
"It can't be… there shouldn't be any more crests to claim." Takeru said. Yeah, how exactly are you gonna explain what is happening right now then?  
"It must be different from the usual, some kind of special evolution." Hey, whatever it is, I'm grateful right now.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Sora, get down!" Taichi shouted as he grabbed Sora and tackled her to the ground, shielding her from Chimairamon who nearly got them with one of his hands. "You okay?"  
"Yeah… thanks, Taichi." She said though she was still a bit in shock.  
"Dammit! He just can't be stopped!" Yamato cursed as their Digimon were beginning to reach the end of their rope.  
"We've thrown everything at him and he's still going with almost not even a scratch." Jou panted in exhaustion.  
"He's clearly designed to be a Perfect-Level Digimon; our Armor-Evolutions only match that of an Adult!" Koushiro informed.  
"Hey, look at the fortress!" Mimi pointed to the now falling base.  
"It looks like they did it!" Ross cheered. Chimairamon looked to it and roared before he just abandoned the fighting against the other Digimon and returned back to the base.  
"Where's he going?" Yamato questioned.  
"I don't know but I do hope the others are ready for a rematch against him…" Taichi said.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"How many times are you all going to get in my way?" Both Ken and I looked up to see the Kaiser staring down at us from an upper platform.  
"Until you come to your senses and realize you're messing with things you can't control! Until you give up and put an end to all this pain and suffering once and for all!" Ken declared.  
"Hey, Digimon Kaiser! It's time to settle this!" I shouted. An explosion rattled the place as something near the bottom of the room had been blown apart.  
"The power of darkness…" Hikari sounded worried.  
"He's back!" Takeru cried meaning that Chimairamon was back for more. We soon heard that sinister laughing from earlier and felt the whole place rock before seeing a wall being absolutely destroyed thanks to Chimairamon bursting through the walls.

"Chimairamon!" The Kaiser sounded pleased. What? He thinks he came back to him out of loyalty? He probably came back because he sensed the presence of Magnamon or Kongoumon because he was flying right towards them.  
"Daisuke!" "Ken-chan!" We heard our Digimon shout out our names before they grabbed us and moved us out of the way as Chimairamon tore through the platform we were standing on. Talk about a close one.  
"Guys, leave this to us." Magnamon advised.  
"Got it." I nodded before I clenched my fist. "All this… ends today!" I ran out for the stairwell with Ken following right behind me.  
"We're going too!" We heard Takeru announce from above us.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Monodramon stood on the platform where the power room once existed before he turned to look at the platform the Kaiser was near and jumped off. He glided to the wall before he gripped it with his claws and crawled his way up until he was now in front of the Digimon Kaiser.  
"Hey, it's dangerous here… We have to run!" He warned.  
"Shut up! My Chimairamon is back."  
"But he's not listening to you anymore… Actually, I don't think he ever listened to begin with."  
"Shut up!" The Kaiser cracked his whip and hit the floor right next to Monodramon who backed up in fear. He turned his attention back to the fight. "Chimairamon…" The three Digimon charged towards each other but Magnamon and Kongoumon backed up to avoid the swings that the abomination tried to do with his Devimon hands. They bounced off the wall and headed right back towards him.  
"Magnum Punch!" "Teppou!" Magnamon charged with his fist raised while Kongoumon had all six of his fists up and struck the Digimon hard with Kongoumon slamming Chimairamon's gut while Magnamon got him in the face.

"Guys!" Daisuke yelled out as he and Ken were catching up with the others running up the stairwell of the fortress.  
"Daisuke-kun! Ken-kun!" Takeru looked back at them. Their speed proved usefully as Chimairamon's arm crashed through the stairwell just a few meters behind them. The monster was now pinned and open to multiple attacks from the two golden Digimon.  
"Magnum Kick!" "Holy Roll!" Magnamon kicked him in the face while Kongoumon rolled up into a ball and spun rapidly into his chest. They then began just throwing multiple kicks and punches while the mutant Digimon remained stuck.  
"There's not much time left. The fortress is starting to collapse." Tailmon observed.  
"If we don't hurry, that Kaiser is going to get away!" believed Armadimon.  
"Alright, let's go!" Daisuke took the lead and ran further up the stairs with the others behind him as Chimairamon got free. He charged up his Heat Viper attack and fired, forcing both Digimon to back away to avoid the attack but they didn't get away clean as their armor was smoking due to the heat.

The attack also nearly hit the Kaiser as the flames struck the fortress walls only a few meters away from his observation platform.  
"Where are you aiming, Chimairamon?" The Kaiser demanded. Chimairamon just turned his attention away from the two Digimon and stared right at the Kaiser before giving that haunting laugh that was tormenting the Kaiser. A look of utter terror flashed across the boy's face as he backed up to the far wall in the stairwell. Magnamon and Kongoumon charged once more but were both struck by the arms and sent falling down to the dark bottom of the room. The Kaiser was paralyzed in fear and the sounds he was making matched it as Monodramon grabbed his leg to try to get his attention.  
"You understand now, right, Osamu-chan?" The Kaiser regained himself and tried to shake the dragon Digimon off of his leg.  
"Let go!"  
"We made a mistake!"  
"Mistake?" He questioned. "Nonsense! I never make mistakes. I'm always perfect!"  
"This time is different, Osamu-chan…"  
"Shut up!" He kicked him off then cracked the whip on the floor. "This is a game, and the ultimate winner will be me!"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"You're still saying that?" I shouted as we all caught up to the Kaiser on the stairwell. He turned around and looked to us before giving us a smug look.  
"The Chimairamon I created will never lose to you."  
"It's not the time to be talking about winning or losing a game!"  
"You think you can just build a Digimon?" Miyako angrily questioned. "Do you really think you can do that?"  
"Taking other Digimon's data and being proud of 'my Digimon'… It's stupid. Digimon are not toys!" cried Iori.  
"Look at these Digimon!" Takeru motioned to our partners. "Digimon have souls too! They're alive! They're our irreplaceable, most important partners!" If I looked closely, I think the Kaiser's eye widened at that point.  
"You're a Chosen Child, and you can't understand that? That Digimon is your partner, isn't he?" Hikari pointed to Monodramon who he turned to look at.  
"Osamu…" Ken stepped forward. "Try and remember. Everything you and I did with Wormmon and Monodramon when we came to the Digital World. Remember all those times he tried to protect you… Monodramon has been loyal to you throughout everything you've done, before and after you became the Kaiser."

"Osamu-chan…" Monodramon looked up to him, waiting for an answer.  
"My suitable Digimon is…" The Kaiser muttered. Don't say it. "Chimairamon!" We looked down to the ruins of the power room and saw that Chimairamon was just blasting anything in an effort to kill Magnamon and Kongoumon. Both of them vanished in the flames of a large explosion before another titanic one detonated at the base of fortress. The whole place rocked violently and warning alarms began blaring. "It's the end of this fortress… Stay here if you want to die!" He then ran further ahead with Monodramon following him behind.  
"Wait, Digimon Kaiser!" I yelled. "Ichijouji Osamu!" Another explosion went off and the place rocked again.

"Miyako-san, we must escape too!" Hawkmon informed.  
"But, aren't you tired?" She asked.  
"It's okay. Please leave it to me."  
"Are you alright, everyone?" Tailmon looked to Armadimon and Patamon.  
"Dagyaa." Both Digimon nodded.  
"Then… please!" Hikari said.  
"Digimental Up!" Hikari, Iori, Takeru, and Miyako all shouted.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" "Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!" "Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" "Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"

"Gold Rush!" Digmon blasted a hole through the fortress walls and we busted our way out, with the others riding their Digimon while I rode with Takeru and Ken with Miyako.  
"Plasma Shot!" I looked over to see that Chimairamon had followed our Digimon outside before seeing the armor on Magnamon open up and launch out multiple golden missiles.  
"Vajra Bombs!" Kongoumon throws all of his Vajra's out before they regenerate in his hands. All the objects approaching Chimairamon explode but do not destroy him.  
"Osamu…" I hear Ken mutter and I turn my head back to see a Devidramon escaping the base. Safe to assume that the Kaiser is on that. The base rapidly lost altitude until he slammed into the desert ground which kicked up a huge sandstorm and forced us to cover our eyes.

"Extreme Blast!" "Divine Wave!" Both Magnamon and Kongoumon shot out a massive beam of light at Chimairamon which clearly hurt him but by the time it died down, he was still standing! Albeit smoking from the heat, but it was clear that we still couldn't beat him!  
"It's no use…" Kongoumon growled.  
"Damn it, I have no power left…" cursed Magnamon.  
"Me too, I used everything in that!" Both Digimon were grabbed by Chimairamon in his Devimon arms.  
"Ahh!" They both shouted in pain.  
"Magnamon!" "Kongoumon!" We screamed for our Digimon as we began approaching where the others were with their tired Digimon.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"That's it! Crush them, Chimairamon!" The Kaiser yelled out from atop the Devidramon he was standing on away from the battle.  
"Don't give up, Magnamon… Kongoumon…" Monodramon said.  
"What!?" The Kaiser shouted before he swung his whip and cracked it on the back of Monodramon's head. This was a first. He had always cracked the whip around him but never actually stuck Monodramon with it. However, this finally caused something to snap in the dragon.  
"Osamu-chan… you still don't understand?" He winced in pain but stuck it out. "The old Osamu-chan wasn't like this…" He turned around and revealed he had tears in his eyes. "The Osamu-chan I traveled the Digital World with wasn't like this… the first time you actually saw me, you freaked out and were scared. But then we soon laughed together, we cried together… The normal, compassionate Osamu-chan!" The Kaiser just continued to stare at him while Chimairamon tightened the grip he had on the two Armor Digimon.

"And then… the next time we met, you told me to call you 'Digimon Kaiser'… I couldn't do it… at least not for long… because… No matter how you look, you're still Osamu-chan. That's why… no matter what horrible things you did after becoming the Digimon Kaiser… I always thought you would return to the old Osamu-chan someday. Believing in that, I stayed with you!" Monodramon soon began to glow when he said that. And both Magnamon and Kongoumon began to glow as well.  
"Th… this is…" Magnamon muttered.  
"From now on, I'll always believe in you. The real Osamu-chan isn't the Digimon Kaiser. The real Osamu-chan…" Monodramon suddenly exploded in light. "Is the compassionate Osamu-chan!" He yelled as he tackled the Kaiser and knocked him off of his Devidramon. Monodramon soon took the reins so to speak and flew the controlled Digimon straight towards Chimairamon. "AHHHHHH!" He screamed as they rammed into the abomination and forced him to free his captives.  
"Monodramon, you…" Kongoumon said as both he and Magnamon was taken aback by the actions of the dragon Digimon.  
"Save Osamu-chan…" Chimairamon was beyond enraged by this action and swatted Devidramon away with his Kuwagamon hand which sent Monodramon flying… only to be punched by the SkullGreymon arm.

"Monodramon!" Both Magnamon and Kongoumon shouted.  
"Please, Kongoumon, Magnamon… Save Osamu-chan…" A bright light shout out Monodramon before it split in two and connected with the two Armor Digimon.  
"Monodramon's power…" Kongoumon said.  
"It's running through my body…" Magnamon finished. Both Digimon turned to stare down Chimairamon who was fast charging them. Both of them roared in anger before channeling all their power into their most devastating attacks.  
"Extreme Blast!" "Divine Wave!" The two of them exploded in a bright ball of light which terrified Chimairamon but it was too late. He was caught in the blast zone and screamed as he was slowly disintegrated into data. When the light died down, there was nothing left of the evil Digimon.

"My Chimairamon…" The Kaiser muttered. "…lost." He fell to his knees in defeat.  
"Alright!" All the Chosen Children and their Digimon cheered in victory upon the sight they just witnessed while Daisuke and Ken ran forward to get their Digimon who devolved back to their Baby-Levels of Chibimon and a small larva creature that was sheltered in a pinecone looking shell called Minomon.  
"Are you alright?" Daisuke asked as he ran up to Chibimon. Chibimon gave him a small laugh before closing his eyes to quickly rest. "Chibimon…"  
"You okay, Minomon?" Ken picked up his partner.  
"I'll be alright…"  
"Thank goodness…"  
"Huh…?" Daisuke said as he noticed something light-blue colored buried in the sand. He picked it up and looked at it. He saw that it looked exactly like the Crests the others had but the symbol was the one that was on the Golden Digimental.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Hey, over here!" Koushiro called out and we soon ran over to where he was where we saw the Kaiser on his hands and knees in the sand.  
"Didn't think you were really gonna run away…" Jou observed.  
"I've been dreaming of this moment for months." Yamato said.  
"I… lost…" The Kaiser muttered. "Why? Everything was supposed to be perfect…" He pounded his fist. "This… this is the worst… The worst bad ending of all…"  
"Checkmate, Herr Kaiser. Do us all a favor and be smart with your next move. Surrender now." demanded Ross.  
"If that's the case… I'll start everything over… I'll reset the Digital World…"  
"Huh?" We all were confused.  
"Reset the Digital World?" Takeru asked.  
"I mean… I'll go home, erase all the data in my computer… And then… and then I'll start all over again."

"What are you talking about?" Daisuke walked up.  
"Resetting, erasing? What do you think this is? A gam- Oh my God." Mimi gasped. We all collectively came to a realization, and if anyone had any animosity towards the Kaiser; it vanished immediately. Osamu really thought all of this was nothing more than just some video game.  
"You actually thought…" Sora muttered.  
"That it was all a game." Taichi finished her sentence. I think Taichi took it to heart the most because I quickly remembered the story during their fight against Etemon when Taichi also thought the Digital World was a game and thought his actions didn't have consequences.  
"Are you serious?" Miyako spoke up. "You think you can reset the Digital World by deleting some data in a computer?"  
"This is not a game." Iori told him which actually caused him to lift his head up and look forward. "You can't reset the Digital World."  
"What did you say?" He turned to us with his eyes widened.  
"Osamu… Onii-san… it's all real." I said.

"That time… at the soccer field…" He seems to be remembering. "It was you Digimon?"  
"We're not just data inside a computer." Chibimon explained.  
"Digimon are just like us." Daisuke said. "We're all the same, alive."  
"Digimon are… living beings?" He was putting it all together. "Then… the Evil Rings, Spirals, Dark Towers, Chimairamon… everything I've been doing…" He finally figured it out… and it absolutely broke him. "I…I… WHAT HAVE I DONE!?" He screamed.  
"The Digital World isn't a dream or a fantasy world." Takeru informed.  
"It's like our world, just another part of reality." Hikari finally spoke.  
"Believe me, Osamu. I once thought the same thing at one point, but quickly realized the truth before I nearly got myself killed." Taichi tried to somewhat console him. But it was far too late. I did what I was trying to do. Bring back Osamu. And Osamu had returned… and he thought himself as nothing more than a monster. Osamu grabbed for his hands and threw off his gloves before they dissolved into data. He then reached for his neck and removed his cape which also vanished before grabbing the Kaiser's glasses and throwing them away, all the while screaming in a mix of anger and sorrow. He got up and walked away from us, grasping his head before he fell forward and the rest of his outfit dissolved, leaving him looking like his normal self, with his short cut hair and school uniform, in the sand.

"Monodramon…" Minomon muttered. We all looked past Osamu and saw Monodramon lying on his side not too far away. We all ran and gathered around the dragon.  
"Monodramon?" Osamu muttered.  
"He's still breathing." Tailmon checked him over. Osamu slowly walked over to us before Monodramon looked up and opened his eyes.  
"You're back to the old Osamu-chan…"  
"Old?" Sora questioned.  
"That suits you better." Monodramon strained. Oh gods above; please don't tell me… Not like this.  
"The old Osamu?" Daisuke repeated the same phrase before he looked into his hand. A light-blue object glowed in his hand before it floated out of it and went towards Osamu. It was his own Crest. I quickly dug into my pocket and found mine before pulling it out.

"In the power room, I heard a voice from that crest." Daisuke explained. "It was saying that it wanted to be free. Like maybe it wanted to go back to its true owner."  
"It's true owner…?" Osamu whispered.  
"I saw a sort of vision of you, Onii-san… you were telling me to use the Digimental to stop Chimairamon and free you from the darkness."  
"Free from darkness…?"  
"That looks like our Crests." observed Koushiro.  
"That's Osamu-chan's…" Monodramon struggled to speak. "…Crest of Compassion."  
"This is my… Crest of Compassion? Is this some kind of cruel joke? I've been anything but compassionate."  
"'Compassion will release the golden light…'" Mimi repeated Wizarmon's message.  
"That must be what Wizarmon was talking about." Hikari guessed.  
"Because… Osamu-chan is compassionate…" Monodramon spoke again. Osamu walked up before he fell to his knees and picked up Monodramon in his arms.  
"Monodramon… Were you… always this light?" Osamu began to tear up. "Monodramon… I'm so sorry…"  
"It's okay… I'm just glad… I was able to see you… the real you… one last time… Goodbye… Osamu…cha-" Monodramon lightly gasped as he closed his eyes, took his final breath… and died in Osamu's arms.

"Monodramon…?" Osamu muttered before Monodramon's body dispersed into data.  
"He's dead…" Yamato said as we all shared a heavy heart for the loyal dragon.  
"Dead? Dead!?" Osamu broke down completely and began crying heavily. "NOOOOOOOO!" He screamed. "Why did he have to die?! Why wasn't it me?! I don't deserve to continue to live!" He cried even harder. "Ken-chan? Where's Ken-chan?" He begged. I put Minomon on my head and quickly dived down next to him.  
"I'm here, Onii-san! I'm here!" He grabbed me and continued crying into my chest.  
"Ken-chan, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…" He sobbed before he soon went quiet. I looked down and saw he wasn't moving.  
"Onii-san? Onii-san? Onii-san!" I shouted.  
"What happened!?" Mimi exclaimed as Jou ran up next to me.  
"He's unconscious. Probably due to exhaustion, malnutrition, and dehydration." Jou practically gave a medical examination. "It's amazing he was even functioning so normally for the past few days, much less the past few minutes."  
"What do we do?" Iori asked.  
"We got to get him to a hospital, quick!"  
"Well, what do you say, Ken-kun?" Taichi questioned as everyone looked to me. I slowly got up, carrying Osamu over my shoulder as best I could before looking at all of them.  
"Let's go home…" I looked back to Osamu. "All of us." On August ninth, Two-thousand and two, at seven twenty-three Japan Standard Time… the war against the Digimon Kaiser had finally ended.

 _Lake Yamanaka, Japan. August 9th, 2002. 0842 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

We returned back to the Real World as soon as we could and the first thing we did upon returning was calling for an ambulance that picked up Osamu. Ken traveled with him while the rest of us started packing up to head back home when we soon had an unexpected and uninvited guest.  
"Hey! Yamato-kun!" Our eyes widened and our jaws nearly hit the ground as we saw Jun running towards us.  
"Man… she actually came all the way here…" Yamato moaned.  
"How mean! Yamato-kun, how could you leave me behind?"  
"Ah! That was, um… you know…" He tried to talk his way out of things. She soon looked around and saw that we were packing up.  
"What!? This isn't fair! Now that I got here, you're leaving already?"  
"It's been a somber morning, sis." Daisuke explained. "Ken found his brother."  
"What!? Really!?"  
"Yeah, we called an ambulance for them an hour ago. And besides, we're all really tired… You came uninvited, so stop complaining! I'm so sleepy…" He climbed into the Ishida van with the myself, Koushiro and the rest of the New Breed.  
"No way!"

"Umm… we have a problem… we won't all fit." Yamato's dad said.  
"Yeah, we're kinda full too…" Phil admitted as he was driving Ross, Sora, Mimi and Jou along with most of the camping equipment.  
"Huh? How were you all going to fit to begin with?" Jun questioned.  
"There was supposed to be a third car that would carry the rest of us." Phil lied to her. "Though, that kinda changed…"  
"Well, I guess the only thing to do is-" Yamato spoke up before his father interrupted him.  
"Yamato, you'll take the bus home."  
"Eh!? You can't be serious…"  
"Here, take this." He handed him some yen for the bus fare.

"Sorry, Yamato." I called out.  
"Well, take care." added Koushiro.  
"H-hey, wait…"  
"Then, I'll go home with Yamato-kun!" Jun cheered as she slid the van door closed. Yamato's eyes practically shot out on the prospect before she wrapped her arm around his. "Leave Yamato-kun to me!"  
"Wait, let me on too!" He shouted.  
"Have fun, you two lovebirds!" Ross teased from the Subaru.  
"Ross, get in the front." Phil said.  
"Aw come on!" Ross cried before he reluctantly switched seats with Jou. Guess Phil was going to keep him from sitting next to Mimi.  
"Bye!" Jun waved as we all began driving away, leaving Yamato behind.

"And now, on the news…" I turned up the radio in the car as we were going down the freeway. "Child prodigy Ichijouji Osamu, who had been missing since May, was found near Lake Yamanaka an hour ago. There are no details as to why the boy who had been missing for three months was discovered in the area by his brother, Ichijouji Ken. However, early reports say that he has been suffering from a mix of exhaustion, dehydration, and malnutrition and is now currently being treated at a nearby hospital. Doctors say he's currently stable."  
"I guess the Digital World's crisis is over." I admitted.  
"For now at least…" Koushiro quickly reminded me. I then remembered that Wizarmon did warn of a greater threat that lurked. "But for now… let's not worry about that for now." He turned to look at the others who were all asleep. "Boy, they all did great."  
"Yep, they sure did."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"-say he's currently stable."  
"He's failed…" A female voice said in a dark apartment in Tokyo.  
"Shame. I had hoped he could've caused some more damage for another month or two… at least when things could be ready." A dark male voice replied.  
"So what shall we do now? Shall I deal with the boy?"  
"No, he's now useless to anybody; it's not worth our time. We must accelerate my plan. Begin Phase Two. You know your mission. Keep the Chosen Children distracted for as long as you can as well as cause as much havoc until the next phase is ready."  
"Of course… I will not fail."  
"I don't expect you to. Just keep them from interfering."

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

What should've been more of a time for celebration was replaced with a pained feeling. We dreamed for months that the Kaiser would be defeated but the last few hours changed all those wishes. I still can't believe that he thought it was all just a game. I mean, I've done the Dark Side playthough of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight a few times, but I would never really go further than that. I sighed as I just kept looking out the window. I hope everything is going to be okay with Ken and his brother. I pray that they'll be okay.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"He should recover but we're gonna keep someone posted on him for the time being." An officer explained to Mom and Dad shortly after they arrived to the hospital Osamu was being treated in. Apparently, the police are under the opinion that Osamu tried to kill himself by starving to death. After the last few hours, I'm honestly worried he might actually try to hurt himself. It was too much pain for anyone to truly handle. I just hope that he'll recover and truly be back home soon.

And I really hope that he can learn to forgive himself for what he has done…

* * *

I always cheer when Wormmon has his moment of pure awesomeness, and Monodramon is no different, you know before I cry. Also, I don't think we need to guess who that man and woman at the end was.

Anyways, this story is going on a bit of a hiatus because I'm gonna do my version of Hurricane Touchdown over the next few days so keep an eye out. Take care everyone.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	28. Brave Evolution! XV-mon!

Hello again, everyone. Sorry for the long hiatus from this. The tests, the side story, it all just came at a bad time. But I'm back now.

Shoutouts to **MadDogLucario96** , **GreenD109** , **DigimonAT0318** , **God of the Challenge** , and **Whiteling** for all your reviews... to all of you keeping patient with me about all of this.

And an added thanks to **DigimonAT0318** for giving me an idea for this chapter, hope you'll enjoy.

Especially since I'm gonna be giving some fanservice at the start... no, not like that, you pervs!

* * *

 **Chapter 27: Brave Evolution! XV-mon!**

 _Yagami Residence,_ _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. August 28, 2002. 0937 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

After the whole Wallace Adventure back in the States, we finished off our vacation and returned home. For the past few days, all of us were catching our breaths after the whirlwind of events that had occurred throughout this month. We also were feeling slightly disappointed. By the time things had quieted down, summer vacation was almost over… seems like fate just didn't want us to have too much fun. Makes sense I guess, there's still that looming threat of a greater darkness that Wizarmon warned about.

However, those worries were in the back of my mind as I had a bigger problem to deal with: getting Taichi to finally ask Sora out on a date.  
"I told you to stop bugging me about it!" Taichi groaned at me as I had been pestering him for the past hour. "We're just friends okay? I don't think she likes me that way."  
"Bullcrap! You two are as crazy for each other as Mimi and I are for ourselves!"  
"But…"  
"No 'buts'! What is it gonna take to convince you that she really likes you? I mean, you've saved her life multiple times including as recent as our fight against Chimairamon. And then let's not forget that kiss during-"  
"I get it." He interrupted me. "I just… I just worry that if I say something wrong, that'll be the end of it, and I don't want to ruin our friendship."  
"The bearer of the Crest of Courage is afraid?"  
"Yeah… I can charge forward towards a real nasty Digimon but I can't ask a girl I really like out." He admitted.

I sat down on the couch and looked towards him.  
"Taichi, the same thing happened to me with Mimi. I was so gripped with fear about doing something wrong and screwing everything up that I couldn't bring myself to asking her out sooner."  
"Okay, then, what finally made you ask her out?"  
"I needed a push; that came in the form of Chuumon and Sukamon trying to ask her out and I knew she didn't want to truly go out with them but she also didn't want to hurt the feelings of the Digimon that saved her, so I saw one way out of it and that was to ask her out."  
"Hmm… so, I guess… what I need is a push?"  
"That's right." I got up and walked over to the phone.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Calling Sora."  
"What!?" He ran up next to me. "Dude!"  
"Listen, Taichi, you can't keep waiting and waiting. Sometimes you just need to dive in the deep end. I know it's tough, but what's the alternative? Keep her waiting until you let her run into the arms of someone who took the plunge?" Taichi looked disappointed after I said that.  
"No… I don't want…"

 _"Hello?"_ Sora's voice rang over the other end of the phone.  
"Take the plunge." I whispered. It was now or never for Taichi at this moment. He took a deep breath before he took the phone from me.  
"Yeah, hi, Sora? It's Taichi." I backed away to give them some privacy over the phone. "Yeah, I was calling to ask you… I was a calling to ask you…" Come on, Taichi, you can do it. He took another deep breath. "Sora, do you want to have lunch with me next weekend?" For a second, Taichi looked calm, then the next second a bit worried, before he soon had a big smile on his face. "Great, okay, well, I'll call you back about the details. Okay, bye then." He hung up and then looked at me. "'Mom! Mom! He finally asked me out!'" Apparently, Sora didn't keep her voice down and Taichi heard her yell at her mother.  
"See? What did I tell you?"  
"You were right, thanks for pushing me into the deep end." I smiled.  
"You would've done the same for me."  
"Yeah, now I gotta plan out my date with Sora and figure out what… to… say…" Uh, oh. Taichi is now realizing that maybe he can't act as he normally was with Sora when on the date. And he still had the problem of letting his mouth run faster than his brain.  
"Welp, we're boned." I admitted.

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 3th, 2002. 1057 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

As much as the children wanted it to continue, summer break had eventually ended and they were all back in class again. Iori's class was reading poems and short stories and he was currently the one speaking while Upamon was hiding in his desk.  
"'And so, the country was saved. The king was overthrown, and the country was saved. The people were deeply saddened by the king's downfall. That sadness remained forever with the people, and became a legend." He finished and sat down.  
"This class makes me want to cry, dagyaa!" Upamon whispered and looked sorrowful in the face.  
"Shh…" He shoved him deeper into the desk.

Miyako was currently in a chemistry class where she was showing some fellow classmates what to do.  
"Take this fluid… Mix it with the other fluid in a beaker; heat it with an alcohol lamp… Oh, and wait three minutes!"  
"That looks a little dangerous…" Poromon said as he observed from outside the window. "Huh?" The fluid began to smoke and turn purple as it was bubbling. Miyako watched in utter surprise as the rest of her class mates too cover.  
"Watch out!" Miyako moved to slow and the concoction exploded, covering her in soot. She nervously chuckled as she began cleaning up her mess.  
"I was wrong…" She muttered.

In the gym, Takeru, Hikari and Daisuke's class was split in two. The girls were dancing on the floor like ballerinas while Hikari danced gracefully, even more so than her classmates. Tailmon, Patamon and Chibimon were all in the gym hiding in the bleachers and watching.  
"I want to dance too…" Tailmon said as she looked on in envy.  
"Then let's dance!" Patamon suggested.  
"Yeah!" The two of them proceeded, and while they weren't as graceful as the girls on the floor, they were at least having fun. A sentiment not shared by Chibimon.  
"You two go ahead and have fun. Hmph!" He crossed his arms. On the other side of the court, Takeru and Daisuke and the rest of the boys were stretching and shooting some shots as they were about to play some basketball. Daisuke was feeling pretty smug as he got the ball spinning around his finger when the whistles started blowing. "The boys' basketball game is about to start!" Chibimon cried.

The boys lined up for the tip off. Daisuke was on the white team, while Takeru was on the red team, signified by the small red jerseys they were wearing over their gym clothes, when the ball was tossed up and Takeru won the tip off. He quickly weaved his way past a couple of defenders as he started running for the basket.  
"Takeru, go get 'em!" Patamon cheered for his partner. Daisuke tried to block Takeru but he quickly out dribbled him and cleared a way towards the hoop. "Shoot!" Takeru cried out. He jumped up and took the shot, delivering a floater that went in with nothing but net. "You did it!"  
"Nice shot!" Tailmon added.  
"Daisuke can do that too!" claimed Chibimon as he turned his head in disgust.  
"Takeru-kun!" Hikari cheered.  
"Alright! We did it!" Takeru high-fived a teammate.  
"That Takeru… he thinks he's so cool!" Daisuke growled. When push came to shove, Daisuke would have Takeru's back if there was any Digimon trouble, but on the court, the rivalry was burning hot.

The whistle blew and Daisuke caught the pass in as his team now had procession. He was being double teamed for a moment but managed to escape it and started running for the hoop.  
"Daisuke, shoot!" Chibimon cried. Daisuke tried to juke out the defender in front of him but his cross-over needed much work as he just tripped over himself and crashed onto the hardwood, losing the ball. Patamon and Tailmon laugh but Chibimon is just livid. "Don't laugh!" The girls were also chuckling before Hikari got them back on point.  
"How about we try it again from the beginning?"  
"Daisuke-kun, are you okay?" Takeru walked up to him and tried to offer a hand.  
"Of course I'm not okay." He got up back up.  
"Why are you upset?" Daisuke huffed and turned his head… and took a basketball straight to the face.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Damn it… this day has really sucked. I'm a laughing stalk on the court and then I get attacked by a rogue basketball which is still stinging. The three of us were sitting at the Headquarters while waiting for Iori and Miyako to show up which they eventually did.  
"You're late." I yelled at them which gave the two of them confused looks.  
"Miyako-san, Daisuke-kun has been in a bad mood for a while…" Takeru explained. "So hurry up and open the gate." She accepted and walked over to the screen.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" She shouted.

"You know, even with the Digimon Kaiser gone, we can still come to the Digital World." Iori said as we entered a torn up forest; no real idea what caused the damage from that.  
"What do you mean?" Miyako wondered. "Finally, the Digital World is at peace. We can enjoy the Digital World from now on, right?"  
"Er, well…" Both Iori and Takeru tried to tell her.  
"Don't you agree, Hikari-chan?"  
"Eh, I guess…"  
"Miyako's right…" I interrupted. "But we're not here to play today."  
"I know that. We're volunteering to help rebuild the Digital World, right?"  
"We're partly responsible for the damage done here, too." I confessed. Throughout the war, we kind did indiscriminately cause a lot of damage trying to combat the Kaiser, even if we were trying to help.  
"Um… quick question?" V-mon spoke up. "Why isn't Ken here helping?" We all looked at him and he got his answer. Ken's got bigger issues at the moment with his brother.

"Miyako-san, what are the damaged areas?" questioned Iori.  
"Let's see… I'll check the D-Terminal. There's the mountain area… A lot of Gotsumon are doing work out in that area."  
"We'll go there." Takeru raised his hand.  
"Okay, Takeru!" Patamon chimed in.  
"Alright, the mountain area for Takeru." I said.  
"Next, the city… There's a lot of damage there. Those Gazimon have their work cut out for them."  
"Let's go, let's go, let's go, dagyaa! Iori!" Armadimon was really excited and started running off.  
"Wait, Armadimon!" Iori chased after him.  
"Dammit, they took it!" I cursed.

"Next, the rural countryside. There's Gekomon, Otamamon and even Bakemon working the rice fields out there."  
"I guess it's our turn now!" I offered.  
"Wait." Hikari spoke up. "I want to go too."  
"Yeah…" Tailmon agreed.  
"Okay, let's decide by rock-paper-scissors." I suggested.  
"Okay."  
"Starting with rock… Rock, paper, scissors!" I drew rock, she drew paper. Damn! "I lost!" Hikari and Tailmon high-fived each other.  
"Next is the lake…" Hawkmon observed on the D-Terminal.  
"V-mon and I will go there!" We started running off. Wonder what terrible place Miyako's got to help with.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

By the time everyone was out of earshot, Miyako told Hawkmon what the last location was.  
"Only the seaside is left."  
"Miyako-san, I guess that's for us." The Chosen Children went to their respective locations and were getting hard at work at trying to repair all that had been ruined by the Kaiser's rampage. Even some the Old Breed was helping out in another part of the Digital World. A little bet had gone around of who could repair their areas faster, which gave the groups more motivation to help repair all the damage. Takeru and Patamon were planting and watering plants in the mountains with the Gotsumon. Miyako was salvaging old boats with the Gizamon pushing the boats and Woodmon assisting her in pulling them out.  
"I can't reach the ground!" Hawkmon complained as they pulled on the rope. In the city, Iori was assisting RedVegimon in making a large bowl of soup for the Gazimon workers in the city while Armadimon was dead tired from all the labor work he was doing, like being a pack-animal and carrying a lot of sticks before he fell over.  
"You can't eat if you don't work, dagyaa…" Daisuke was at the lake gathering large logs of wood for the Numemon with the assistance of some Vegimon.  
"Move, Numemon! You're in the way!" He shouted to the Numemon that were lounging around on the large logs they had piled up. They gave their complaints by getting off but leaving a disgusting gift for Daisuke which just made him moan.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

Tailmon and I pulled out a bucket of water as we were draining part of the river for the rice fields when we heard and saw Patamon and Takeru approaching us.  
"Tailmon!" "Hikari-chan!"  
"Takeru-kun?"  
"Patamon, what's the matter?" Tailmon asked.  
"Takeru's been worried about something." Patamon explained.  
"What is it?" I questioned.  
"The reason why we can come to the Digital World." He said.  
"That's because we're needed here, right?"  
"That was true three years ago."  
"Then… what about now?"  
"Are we really needed here?" Patamon wondered.  
"But… aren't we needed here to help rebuild the Digital World?" Tailmon was confused by all this and so was I.  
"We're just volunteering to help…" I reminded.

"Yeah, but the fact that we could enter the Digital World means that the Digital World needs us." Takeru continued explaining his concerns. "A crisis is approaching."  
"Another one?" I questioned. He nodded.  
"Remember Wizarmon's warning?" Of course! How could we forget?  
"The enemy is not who you are fighting now. There is a far greater darkness.'" I repeated the message. "Do you think a new enemy is coming?" I certainly hope we have nothing more to do with that Dark World.  
"I don't know about that… but I think Onii-chan, Taichi-san, and some of the others… I think they've all been kinda worried about that. This is definitely something we should tell the Daisuke-kun and the others about this." Tailmon and I both nodded.

We headed out to the lake after we finished helping the Gekomon and Otamamon with some of their work but when we got here, Daisuke was nowhere to be found, much less anyone else.  
"Huh? There's no one here…" Patamon looked around.  
"That's strange… where did everyone go?" I wondered.  
"Heeeey! Don't hide, come out!"  
"Daisuke-kun!" Takeru called him out.  
"V-mon!" Tailmon called for her fellow Digimon.

 _Digital World. September 3rd, 2002. 1603 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

V-mon and I broke away from our work and were just walking through the forest. Of course, this was all part of a huge plan I had come up with.  
"Hey, V-mon… Maybe you already noticed, but… How come Takeru and Hikari-chan get along so well?" My mind flashed back to the game where Hikari was cheering for Takeru.  
"Patamon and Tailmon too…" V-mon said. "They're really good friends…" We both sighed.  
"V-mon!"  
"What, Daisuke?" I grabbed his hands.  
"We have to work together."  
"Work together?"  
"Do something really cool!"  
"Really cool?"  
"And get closer to Hikari-chan…" I imagined myself slam dunking a ball before landing next to Hikari who was cheerleading for me.  
"I want to get closer to Tailmon…" V-mon had stars in his eyes like me. Guess my crush on Hikari may have had an influence on him.

"The only way to do that, V-mon… is for you to evolve to Adult-Level!"  
"Evolve to Adult-Level?"  
"Like, UltraAngemon!" I had in my mind a Digimon that would totally impress Hikari. V-mon nodded and got ready to evolve.  
"Alright! Why don't I become UltraAngemon?" I clap my hands in encouragement. I stopped when I looked in the air and saw a flock of birds fly away in fear before a loud thumping sound was approaching. Right on cue. A large brown monster tore its way through the bamboo and stared down at us as it began growling.  
"V-mon, help me!" I got behind him.  
"Daisuke!" I then ran to cover to allow him to fight. V-mon was just looking completely intimidated.  
"V-mon! Evolve to Adult-Level!"  
"O-okay!" V-mon began spinning around. "V-mon Evolve!" All he accomplished was making himself dizzy and tumbling over into my arms.  
"Aah, he can't evolve…"

"Um…" The monster muttered. "Is this good enough?"  
"Yeah, it's enough. Thanks." I admitted as I rubbed my head. The plan didn't work.  
"You're welcome…" The monster fell over and the Numemon and Vegimon inside all came tumbling out of the fake beast.  
"You went through all that trouble… sorry about that."  
"See ya!" They all waved and walked away. I chuckled before I got angry and looked to V-mon.  
"V-mon, it's your fault!"  
"Why is it my fault?"  
"Because it is!" I bopped him hard on the head. That clearly set him off.  
"I'm mad!" He chopped down some bamboo. "Now I'm mad!" He turned his attention towards me. I started backing up.  
"I'm sorry!" I took off running.  
"Daisuke, wait!"

V-mon chased me for what felt like a good kilometer until we came across a rope bridge going over a deep river chasm. I ran towards the end of it and stopped for a second before I got an idea.  
 _"_ _Next plan… Upsetting V-mon, making this bridge fall, and getting in a desperate situation… This way V-mon will evolve to Adult-Level, it's a perfect plan!"_ I thought to myself. I then snapped the rope and the whole bridge began tumbling apart. "V-mon, help me!" I cried.  
"Daisuke!" The bridge snapped in half in front of him and he jumped out to me as I hung onto the rope and slammed the cliff wall. He managed to reach me but he was hanging onto my feet.  
"V-mon! Evolve to Adult-Level!"  
"V-mon… Evolve…" Nothing happened before he lost his grip and fell into the river. I lost my grip on the rope too and fell in with him.

After getting sent down the current, we finally came ashore soaking wet where I came clean with him.  
"A plan to make me evolve to Adult-Level?" questioned V-mon.  
"If I got in danger, you'd evolve to Adult and save me. That was the plan."  
"But it looks like it didn't work…I'm sorry, Daisuke."  
"It's not your fault, V-mon."  
"Really?"  
"Nah, it's mine. I'm sorry about all this, I shouldn't have tricked you and put us in danger like that."  
"It's okay, Daisuke." I'm glad he forgives so easily.  
"You know, what I was doing… reminded me of that story Taichi-san once told when he tried to get Agumon to reach his Perfect-Level and he evolved into SkullGreymon." We both thought of V-mon going through a Dark Evolution and shuttered at the thought.  
"Hey, let's go back with the others!" He suggested. That sounded like a good thing right now.

As we got up, we heard the sounds of rocks crumbling before we looked up and saw that a rockslide was about to begin on the cliff above us.  
"Run, V-mon!" I started to move.  
"This is a plan to make me evolve to Adult-Level, isn't it?" He questioned.  
"It's no plan!" I went back and grabbed him as a large boulder started rolling down on us. We ran as hard as we could until we dived out of the way and it continued rolling on until it crashed into the river. We panted as we were out of breath. "That was too close."  
"Yeah."

However, our luck would continue to go downhill as a large reptile-turtle jumped down from the cliff side and landed right behind us. He had a glare in his eye as he looked at us and roared.  
"Uh… V-mon, who is that?"  
"That's Tortamon… he's a tortoise-like Reptilian Digimon with a sharp-spiked shell. His special attack is Shell Phalanx." V-mon explained before Tortamon roared again and started charging towards us.  
"Run!" I screamed as V-mon and I got to moving again. "What's this guy's problem?" I shouted as we kept trying to keep ahead of him.  
"I don't know! Is this-"  
"V-mon! I wouldn't have thought this far ahead! I'm not Ken or Ross-san!" We ran harder than before.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Daisuke-kun and V-mon are practicing to evolve to Adult-Level?" Takeru repeated what the Numemon and Vegimon told him and Hikari when they returned to the logs.  
"Daisuke-kun… what is he thinking?" Hikari moaned.  
"Help!" Everyone soon heard the two of them approaching.  
"Daisuke-kun!" "V-mon!" Hikari and Tailmon said as the two of them ran up to the group and began panting.  
"What's wrong? All panicked like that…" Takeru asked. They got their answer as Tortamon roared again ran towards them. "What did you do?!"  
"Nothing! He just up and attacked us out of nowhere, I swear!" Daisuke explained. They didn't get much more time to talk as Tortamon was already upon them. Tailmon and Patamon stood their ground while Hikari, Takeru and the other Digimon took cover behind the logs while Daisuke and V-mon ran again. Tortamon barreled right through and completely ignored the Digimon as he just kept up the chase.

"Well, it's clear that thing is upset with him, though I think Daisuke was telling the truth." Takeru observed.  
"Shouldn't we help him?" Hikari wondered.  
"Yeah, we should, but first, let's get Miyako-san and Iori-kun to give a hand, that Digimon looks tough."  
"Good idea, Takeru." Patamon said.  
"Actually, we only need Miyako, because I think Daisuke is running towards the city." Tailmon noticed.  
"Okay, let's find Miyako-san, then help Daisuke-kun." Takeru said.

"Men!" Iori shouted.  
"Men!" The Gazimon repeated. Iori was teaching them some kendo while they were taking a break before Daisuke was approaching the ruined city.  
"Iori!" Daisuke yelled out.  
"Daisuke-san and V-mon?" He questioned as the two ran up to him.  
"Help us!" They said as they got behind him.  
"Understood." Iori stood in a fighting position with the stick he was holding. However, as soon as he saw Tortamon… he panicked while the Gazimon and Armadimon took cover. "I-I doubt my kendo is good enough against him… I'm sorry!" He threw away his stick and ran for cover too, forcing Daisuke and V-mon to run once more. "I'm glad I didn't get involved… he sure wouldn't be an easy opponent." Iori admitted but felt shameful about his cowardice.  
"Exactly, dagyaa! Come on, let's find the others to help him." Armadimon suggested and the two of them went out to look for the others.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Man, I don't know how far we've ran but that guy is still on us! We soon ran up a hill all the while Tortamon was keeping up. We had to stop as we reached a large ledge and saw that if we went any further, there was a long drop onto sharp rocks waiting below for us.  
"Trapped!" I cried as Tortamon was now slowly approaching. We turned around and looked at him. He was panting trying to catch his breath as V-mon and I held on to each other.  
"It's the end!" We both said. He roared again.  
"Wait, Tortamon! Come on man, what exactly did we do to upset you?" I questioned. He stood there for a second before he just roared again.  
"I don't think he's listening to us." V-mon admitted.  
"What is this guy's problem?" We looked and saw there was no Evil Ring or Spiral on him, meaning he was doing all of this of his own free will. He roared once more before taking a step closer to us.  
"I think this might be the end, Daisuke…"

Tortamon tried to crush us with his foot but we dived out of the way. He turned his attention to me while V-mon tried to head-butt him but he was swatted away by his tail. V-mon groaned on the ground in pain before Tortamon turned his attention back towards me.  
"V-mon!"  
"Daisuke…"  
"V-mon! You've got to evolve!" I begged and held up my D-3 in hope for something.  
"Daisuke!" V-mon got up and began to glow.  
"He's… he's…  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-mon!"

He actually did it. He evolved. XV-mon looked like a larger version of himself with a larger horn on his face, an 'x' on his chest and two wings on his back. Cool, guess he can fly now.  
"V-mon evolved to Adult-Level!" I cheered, mostly to myself. XV-mon went to work and charged forward where he grappled with Tortamon's head but was knocked down once more before he stepped on his chest. He was quick to respond however and gave him a sharp kick to the face that knocked him on his back. XV-mon got up and grabbed him by the tail and started to spin him around like it was Super Mario 64. He was thrown hard to the ground but recovered quickly.  
"Shell Phalanx!" The shell glowed and fired large boulders at XV-mon who punched and roundhouse kicked them all to dust. Tortamon charged now but XV-mon jumped over him and kicked him into the ground before he turned around and put his hands to his chest.  
"X Laser!" A 'x' shaped beam fired out of his chest and slammed into Tortamon, who withdrew into his shell, before knocking him off the cliff.

"Yeah!" I cried as the two of us looked over the cliff and saw him below… trying to climb back up. "You've got to be kidding me!" Tortamon looked really upset, especial now that part of his skin was this weird looking black color. Guess we must have burned his skin really bad.  
"Daisuke… he's coming again." noticed XV-mon.  
"I know… what do we do?" XV-mon smashed part of the cliff and cause a small rockslide that knocked him back down to the bottom once more… but he just turned around and started climbing once more.  
"Daisuke…"  
"He won't stop coming… and he's not under the influence of anything… but he seems quite hell-bent on harming us." What do we do? What do we do?

 _"_ _Listen, not all Digimon are good, there are some that are just evil and will go out of their way to try to harm you. We all had to make the decision to destroy Digimon in order to stay alive…"_ I recalled Taichi's words when I once talked to him about his earlier adventures. I gulped before I made the decision… I seemed to be making this one the past couple of fights.  
"XV-mon… you're gonna have to destroy him."  
"What?!"  
"Look, he's not stopping, we only have one choice, as painful as it is. We have to, or we're goners." XV-mon looked conflicted before he gained a determined look on his face and cause another rockslide that put Tortamon on his back.  
"X-Laser!" He fired a powerful blast at Tortamon's exposed underbelly… and the Digimon exploded into data. Both of us now felt terrible about what we just did.  
"We… we had no choice…" I muttered.  
"Yeah… let's… let's go back to the others." He suggested and we soon walked away.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Hm… that was a bit unexpected… was kinda wishing that he had just killed the boy and demoralize the rest of them." A strange white haired woman in red with sunshades said as she had overlooked the fight. "Oh, well, there are plenty of other chances to cause destruction and other chances to kill those brats."

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Are you done with your games?" Hawkmon questioned as we regrouped with the others. I was enjoying the ride as best as I could while riding on XV-mon's shoulder.  
"We weren't playing… Tortamon was really upset at us." I told them.  
"Sorry we didn't help Daisuke-kun, we were looking for Miyako-san…" Takeru tried to explain.  
"It's okay. We… took care of it." I lied. I don't know how they respond if they knew the truth. I then realized something. "Oh, yeah! What do you think? V-mon evolved to Adult-Level as XV-mon!" I tried to play off my shame with a sense of arrogance and pride; just making sure they don't realize something is wrong.  
"This means we can rebuild faster now." Iori believed.  
"We have to get XV-mon and Daisuke to work extra hard!" Miyako said.  
"Right!" Everyone agreed.  
"Eh?!" I shouted before I slipped off XV-mon's shoulder and fell to the ground, to the humor of the others. I then just sighed and accepted the arrangement.

Still, my decision and what we did, it was the only thing we could do about that… wasn't it…?

* * *

So, I went a bit of a different route for this one. Hope you guys like it. As AT said, the others felt a bit OOC in this episode, what with not really helping Daisuke. Plus, V-mon evolves in a more misunderstood situation of accidently catching Tortamon while he was relieving himself and rather a more precarious situation with an active hunter out for blood.

Anyways, next chapter will be soon and it's gonna be a good one. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	29. Sins of the Past!

So here we are at a chapter I've been longing to do for a while now.

Shoutouts to **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** , and **DigimonAT0318** for the reviews.

I don't really have anything more to say so let's get on with this.

* * *

 **Chapter 28: Sins of the Past!**

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _August 31st, 2002. 1221 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Mom walked back into the living room as me and Dad sat and quietly talked beforehand. She was checking on Osamu once again but the look on her face said that nothing had changed.  
"Osamu… how is he?" Dad asked. She quietly shook her head before she sat back down.  
"But I'm sure he'll wake up someday." She said. Osamu was still in his state, practically moving and not saying anything.  
"Well, at least he's eating and drinking, but he's kinda of in a state or something." I pointed out. When Mom left him food and drink, we'd find that the food and drink was gone so that at least meant that Osamu was keeping healthy… but he just didn't do anything else. I saw Wormmon peeking out of the hallway with a sad look in his eyes. He'd been pretty depressed about everything lately as well. After all, most of his memories returned as well as mine involving our previous adventures and Monodramon was practically like a brother to him, which has added to his down mood. The only time he seemed to be like his normal self was that little adventure in America a few days ago. The same could be said for me about everything too. The mood in this house was just one of sorrow. I only wish I knew what I do for Osamu to help him.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

I know I should wake up. I know I should wake up and get out of bed, but I just can't bring myself to do that. I wake up and eat and drink what's brought to me but I don't get out of bed or say anything. I stay a waking sleep. I'll stay asleep… in order to find my heart. Where did my heart go? I wasn't always a monster was I? Surly, I must have been a decent person before I became the Kaiser? And where did he come from? What caused me to think the Digital World a game and commit those countless atrocities upon innocent Digimon? I decided to look back at my memories, maybe there was something there to show that I was once a good person… the one Ken looked up to and admired. The first memory that seemed to pop in my head was when I was really little, like maybe when I was six or seven years old. I remember standing on the apartment balcony with Ken who couldn't be any older than three or four, and we liked to blow bubbles. It was simple and yet, I remember we had fun. I had fun. Certainly blowing bubbles couldn't truly be bad could it?

Of course, that was before the time when I started to show my genius… and where everything began changing. Definitely not for the best.  
"Mama! I'm home!" I announced as I came home one day from school, only to find Mom talking to one of our neighbors or some friend or even really for the most part, a stranger. And they all were basically saying the same thing.  
"Osamu-chan is such a smart boy!"  
"I'm so envious of you!"  
"He's nothing like our son."  
"I wish my son became more like Osamu-chan!"  
"What did you do to make him such a smart boy?"  
"He's got so many good traits from both of you!"  
"He's such a genius!"

That's I can think all of these problems started, right around when I started to stand out from the other children and the word began to spread. And Mom and Dad lapped it all up. They loved the attention they were getting, all the nice things that were being said about me. I wish I had said something like stop drawing attention to me or something else, but I decided to be a good little boy and continue letting the praise go right to Mom and Dad's head. Once the local news got wind of me, it got even worse. I didn't do anything to stop it as it started going to my head too. It made Mom and Dad happy and I wanted to make them happy so I kept going along with it.

Of course, that would be all well and good, but we completely forgot to take in one person's happiness… and that was Ken's. Poor Ken was just being ignored by Mom and Dad who just kept telling me of all the praise I was getting.  
"Mama?" Ken tried to get Mom's attention.  
"Osamu-chan, people praised me again saying you're such a good boy!" She quickly realized that I wasn't the only one in the room. "Oh, Ken-chan, you're a good boy, too!"  
"I'm always just an addition…" I heard him mutter with such a down look on his face. For being such a genius, I was a complete idiot. Ken was feeling so isolated and alone because of our ignorance. I was his older brother, I should've been looking out for him, I should've been there for him sooner but I didn't. I fully understood why those dark feelings started to fester in him, the same probably could've been with me if the roles were reversed.

There was at least one point where things may have actually taken a turn for the better, but there's always a catch. July 3rd, 2000. The day that everything really changed. It was getting late in the evening; I was doing some school work in my room and Ken was also there, for a reason I can't truly remember. That's when it happened, not one but two Digivices shot out of the screen of my computer and landed right between us. If there was just one, I would've assumed it was mine, and perhaps Ken would've thought the same too as he thought of himself as no one special. However, there was two so we both picked up one before questioning for a moment what they were. Ken though maybe they were parts from the computer but no way that could be possible. Of course, we later learned what they were when I accidently held the Digivice a bit too close to the screen and we were both engulfed in a bright light.

The Digital World… was an eye opener to say the least. I have to say that it was slightly better to be in that place with Ken rather than alone. And of course, it wasn't just the two of us for long as we soon met our partners. First time I saw Monodramon, I freaked out and panicked. I was terrified of him. A large dinosaur creature was talking to me, he knew me. Well, I recall Ken liked it better; within a minute he was hugging Wormmon like he was the puppy he always wanted. After a while, I came around to Monodramon and the adventure we shared was great… but why are there so many holes in my memories about it? Why is there a fog involving so many memories of the Digital World? I do know that Ken and I were getting along better throughout, it was like we were before; when I was just plain old Osamu Ichijouji, the kid that lives in apartment 303.

I don't know what happened towards the end of our journey in the Digital World. All I know is that somehow we found a way back home and were back in my room where it was almost nighttime. At first, I thought that Mom and Dad were freaking out about us vanishing for so long but as it turned out… not even an hour had passed. It was still July 3rd. Of course, somehow both our Digivices had just vanished and when Ken finally woke up, he asked me what had happened without any real recollection of the events in the Digital World. I made a big mistake that day; I told him it was all just a very vivid dream. I don't know why I told him that, perhaps, maybe, with the Digivices gone, I assumed the same thing as well. After that, things went back to normal… and Ken went back to feeling himself worthless.

"Whoa, kiddo! Careful! Wouldn't want you to end up like a hood ornament." July 27th, only a few weeks later. How close did things come to tragedy that day? My memories now focused on the day we met Ross McGlathery and Taichi Yagami, two boys who I would later learn as the Kaiser as Chosen Children. The two of them were planning to go to a restaurant but were waiting at the cross walk with us when Ken almost ran out into the street. There didn't look to be any cars coming so jumping the crossing light couldn't have hurt. Of course, we never saw that Toyota coming but Ross kept Ken on the side walk before that maniac flew by. "{Fucking asshole!}" Ross yelled at the car. Thank goodness Ken didn't learn that much English yet. After that close call, the two of them offered to take us to that place they were going and we accepted. We talked with them for a short while and even though they weren't related, they acted like the kind of brothers that both Ken and I wanted to be for each other.

"You're the worst kind of person!" I remember the day that Ken finally snapped and let me have it. He spent almost thirty minutes screaming at me and saying everything that he wanted to say about how he was feeling. I was surprised to hear that he wanted me dead and he even said he wished he ran into the street so I could be run down by that car. My first instinct was my worse one; he ranted for a while before I snapped myself and slapped him. I hit him so hard that I knocked him to the floor and he turned to me with tears in his eyes. That look will always haunt me, when Ken saw me nothing more as an inconsiderate bully rather than a brother. I quickly realized my actions there and begged him for forgiveness as I felt so terrible for what I had done and not doing anything for him sooner. Thankfully, he was quick to forgive, but all was still not well.

The look on Mom and Dad's face when I snapped at them… was almost hard to believe. Here I was, perfect Osamu who does nothing but be well behaved and a good little boy, was ranting and raving at my parents not for myself but for Ken. I called them terrible people for all the inadvertent emotional abuse that they had caused to Ken. I said every nasty word I had ever learned to them, I was red in the face before I finally stopped… but I did what I was trying to accomplish. Instead of getting mad at me, Mom and Dad just broke down and began crying. They felt so shameful about their actions and how they truly thought themselves as terrible parents for practically acting like Ken didn't matter. The moment Ken walked into the room; the two of them grabbed him and held him tight begging for his forgiveness. Sometimes I feel Ken is too kind, but that's what makes him him, because he forgave them in a heartbeat. So, everything should've been better after that, especially when Ken started to shine as a genius in his own right too. It was the birth of the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi and we were as close as we were once before. That really should've been the end of all our problems, but fate always likes throwing the curve-ball.

Sometime last year, a rift was slowly beginning to from between Ken and I as I just was becoming more preoccupied with my studies. I chalked it up to us just growing up, but that was no excuse to practically avoid doing anything with Ken, like going to his games or even just hanging out. The day when everything just went wrong, I was just sitting at my computer and doing what I normally did until I received a strange e-mail from someone that didn't have a name. I should've done the smart thing and deleted it immediately as it was unknown and probably had a virus or something. My curiosity however, got the better of me and I clicked on it. Inside… was something worse than a virus.

 _"_ _I have been watching your progress for quite some time now and have seen what a talented and truly special young man you are. You have such great promise that awaits you. However, you possess talent, but it is sadly being wasted. You're stuck in a world surrounded by those that only wish to exploit your talents for their own gain. You know well what I mean. Today it's your parents, but soon, it will be more than that. These insects that surround you only leach off your true potential. It's a cruse you must live with. But what if I told you there was another option? A different world, where you wouldn't be crippled by the stupidity of society? A world that will completely free your mind and fulfill your destiny. Open the drawer."_

I should've ignored it but something in my mind was gnawing at me, telling me to believe it. Telling me to follow it's advice. I did what was asked and opened my desk drawer. I swear, I know I had opened it a few hundred times before and knew what was in there, but when I opened it the moment I read the e-mail, I found the once missing Digivice just sitting on top of everything in there.  
 _"_ _Use the Digivice."_ That was the last words of the e-mail. I hesitated for a moment before I grabbed it and held it to the screen and was once again drawn into the Digital World.

Or so I thought… where I ended up… was different. It was a cold and dark place that the light dared to reach. I found myself wandering this place until I eventually came across a dark ocean. When I looked towards it, a dark whisper soon appeared in my mind, but it wasn't like it was someone else was trying to talk to me, I was hearing my own voice with those thoughts. It was telling me to place the Digivice in the water. It sounded like it was my thoughts so I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I stuck the Digivice in the water and it turned into the Dark Digivice. The thoughts said that I had done well, but that this was just the beginning… I know realize that was the birth of the Kaiser. My mind was soon flooded by all my cruel actions… actions that I can never take back. All of it was like watching a movie you hate but you can't turn it off or even look away. The worst one came at the end though… when Monodramon, who stayed loyal to me even after everything, died in my arms. And it was all completely my fault…

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _September 2nd, 2002. 1016 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Osamu was still lying in his bed as both of his parents were in his room just looking at him. Ken had already gone back to school and wasn't planning on coming home until class was over while Kaito was taking one of his days off to stay with Ruki. They were both watching him until Osamu started making noises.  
"He's moaning… is he having a nightmare?" Ruki wondered. "Dear?"  
"Hmm?"  
"I've… I've been thinking… all of this… I've been remembering how Ken-chan felt when he was feeling alone and how we practically ignored him and garnered all of our praise and attention to Osamu. I thought, that maybe if we hadn't open our eyes sooner, that Ken probably would've ran away."  
"Yeah, I had the same thought too."  
"But then I realized, that maybe even though we were proud of both Ken and Osamu… we never really took into account of how they felt, like, maybe Osamu-chan didn't want to do all that attention and praise and rather just be a normal kids. I mean, look at Ken-chan. Ever since he's met those other kids, he's been much happier and normal."

"I know what you mean." Kaito nodded. "We both let ourselves become snobbish being called the parents of a pair of geniuses. Our arrogance caused so much pain on one of our boys, but it probably also caused us to nearly lose the other."  
"Yeah, I've honestly believe that we've force both of them into roles they truly didn't want. I mean, do you honestly think that Osamu-chan likes studying? I don't think he hates it, but I think he'd rather just like to enjoy himself and have fun, like any normal kid would."  
"I do believe we probably did stop him from being more like himself."  
"I always thought that we were decent parents to both of them, even after our mistake… but we just kept up a different one… we've failed as parents." She admitted.  
"You're right…" Both of them turned back to look at Osamu.  
"Osamu, open your eyes…" "Osamu, give us a chance to apologize." The two of them begged.

 _"_ _Where did my heart go? What kind of a person am I?"_ Osamu thought to himself. _"When I was little… I used to blow bubbles with Ken. We'd stand on our balcony, with soapy water and a straw with a cut end. I was always the one who made the soapy water, and was the one who cut the straws. But why did I do it? It wasn't to make myself happy, but rather Ken. I enjoyed seeing him happy, especially one day we were blowing."  
_ "Here, Ken, try blowing." Young Osamu handed the cup full of soapy water to Young Ken.  
"Okay." Ken put the straw to his mouth and soon began blowing big bubbles. "You do it too!" He handed back Osamu the cup.  
"But I'm not good at it." He admitted.  
"There's something you can't do?" Ken was surprised to hear that.  
"Of course! You're the best at blowing bubbles because you blow kindly. I can't do it, they always burst." He tried to blow one but it burst. He then looked over but found Ken was gone and standing in his place was Monodramon who stared at him for a moment before he burst like the bubble too. "No, wait! Monodramon! Come back!" Young Osamu shouted. _"That's right… he won't come back. Monodramon is dead because of my actions."_ Osamu's mind echoed before he finally woke up.

Osamu slowly raised himself up out of his bed until he was sitting up.  
"Osamu!" "You're awake!" His parents ran up to the side of his bed. He turned to look at them for a moment before he finally spoke.  
"Who are you?" He questioned. Those words utterly shocked them. "Who are you?" He repeated.  
"You don't know who we are?" Ruki looked absolutely heart broken.  
"Did he lose his memory?" Kaito questioned.  
 _"_ _No, I didn't lose my memory. What I meant was, what meaning do you have for me?"_ Osamu thought to himself.  
"I can't believe he doesn't recognize us…" Ruki's tears were beginning to show.  
 _"_ _You don't know who I am, either. Who are you? And who am I?"_

He tried to get up more but his mother motioned to him.  
"It's alright, don't push yourself. We're just happy you're safe." Ruki tried to assure him.  
"Osamu, we may have forced you to be someone you weren't without realizing it." explained Kaito. "We're sorry… you should be who you are. You shouldn't be the person we want, but rather the person you wanted to be."  
"Please forgive us… and get better soon."  
 _"What are these people talking about? I don't understand. I don't understand what they mean."  
_ "Please, we're begging for another chance." Kaito said.  
 _"_ _You're asking for another chance? Shouldn't I be the one asking for one?"  
_ "We just want you to be you, Osamu-chan! Not the perfect genius everyone says but just our son!" cried Ruki.  
 _"_ _This person is crying… why? I'm the one who's sad."_ Osamu began to shed some tears. _"Tears? Tears in my eyes, too? Why? Why am I crying? At least… at least I can share my sorrow with these people, and try to find who I truly am."_

A few hours later, Osamu was staring out the window towards the city.  
 _"_ _I'm empty. Because I don't know where my heart is."_ He thought to himself.  
"Hey, Onii-san, dinner's ready." Ken walked up to him. Ken arrived earlier and was informed about what had happened. It confused him about why Osamu seemed to be suffering from amnesia but he quickly that maybe that was the best. Better to at least not remember the Kaiser. He tapped him on the shoulder and brought him back to reality. "Sorry, Mom says you don't have to push yourself." Osamu looked down and picked up a picture of him and Ken when they were younger. In it, they were smiling and looked happy. "Couldn't tell you when that one was taken. It seems so long ago."

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _September 5th, 2002. 1436 Hours._

Ken, who arrived home early from school, opened the door to Osamu's room and saw him staring at something on his keyboard that made him wide eyed. It was Osamu's Dark Digivice and his Crest of Compassion. His face took a sad look as he remembered his loyal Digimon, who he treated abhorrently.  
"Monodramon…"  
"Well, at least you remember him…" Osamu turned around and saw Ken was in his room with Wormmon now popped out of the opening in his duffle bag.  
"Monodramon… he's gone…"  
"Yeah, he is… he was a great Digimon partner. And a true friend to you… It's not your fault he's gone."  
"No, the Kaiser… he's… Monodramon is gone because of the Kaiser… because of me…" He looked heartbroken. Ken sighed.

"You know, he never truly gave up on you… even after everything. He never gave up… and neither did I. How could I? I felt ignored by Mom and Dad and I told you so many terrible and hateful things and all you did was turn that on them and defend me. That's why I came after you. Because I still believed in you, I believed the real you was still in there somewhere…" Osamu began tearing up again. "You know… I said all of this to Ross-san when I was at the Village of Beginnings; it's a place where all Digimon are born and reborn." Osamu's eyes slowly widened upon hearing that. "But… I just want you to know… that I forgive you." Ken said before he left; only leaving Wormmon behind.  
"Monodramon believed in you… Ken-chan believed in you… and both of them forgave you. You want to know what I say… there's at least one Digimon that forgives you too… you… you get better, Osamu-chan." Wormmon began crawling away too, leaving Osamu alone in his room once more. After a few moments of contemplating in his mind, he stood up.

"Osamu-chan, how about some tea?" Ruki knocked on the door to Osamu's room. She opens the door, only to find Osamu missing. "Osamu-chan!?"  
"What!? What happened!?" Ken ran into the room.  
"He's… he's gone!" Ruki began to show tears once more.  
"Okay, hang on, Mom, maybe he just walked out… I'll go find him!" He quickly ran back to his room.  
"Osamu-chan…?" Wormmon asked.  
"I don't know… but I think I've got a good idea."

 _Digital World. September 5th, 2002. 1514 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

I once more returned to the Digital World and slowly began just wandering through the vast wastes of a rocky desert, all in a bid of trying to find my heart. Where is my heart? I want to find my heart. I want to search for my heart. After wandering for who knows how far and how long, I soon came across a much different sight. It was a strange looking place, with large towers made out of baby blocks and many eggs around the area, but… it all had a sense of calmness and innocence with it.  
"What is this place?" I questioned.  
"This would be the Village of Beginnings." I turned to see an Elecmon sitting on the ground with his eyes closed as I guess he was relaxing. "This is where Digimon are born… it's also where Digimon who die can become Digieggs and be reborn." I couldn't believe those last words.  
"Reborn? Monodramon too?"  
"All Digimon become Digieggs and are reborn." He explained. I suddenly felt my spirits soar. There was actually a way to get Monodramon back! That'll solve everything! I'll get Monodramon back and then everything can go back to the way it did!

I ran deeper into the village and was surrounded by dozens of Digieggs before I suddenly stopped. My spirts began to dampen once again as I kept looking at the Digieggs before I came to the sad realization… I didn't know what his Digiegg looked like.  
"I don't know… which one is Monodramon?" I ran over to a few more. "Just like I don't know who I am… how would I know which one is Monodramon's Digiegg?"  
"Should've realized who you were sooner…" I turned and saw that Elecmon staring at me and he looked upset. "Just because you're wearing something else… still can't hide who you are, Digimon Kaiser! Just what do you want to do with Monodramon's Digiegg!?" He charged me and tackled me to the ground. I clutched my sides in pain as I tried to get back up.

"The Digimon Kaiser… Yeah, that's right… I'm the Digimon Kaiser…" I looked to my hands. I could practically see them dripping with blood of all those I harmed. "I've done horrible things…" How many are here because of me? Did I kill any? Even if I somehow didn't kill any Digimon… "I'm the one who let Monodramon die… Then what am I trying to accomplish by looking for Monodramon's Digiegg?"  
"If you find his Digiegg, Monodramon will come back. You'll be free from yourself, the one who let him die. But, you're only doing it to be freed from that guilt. Isn't that so? How selfish. In the end, you're not doing it for him; you're just doing it for yourself. Monodramon wouldn't be reborn for someone as selfish as you!" I clutched my head now as Elecmon said those words.  
"Monodramon won't come back? No… no… he has too! He has to come back! He deserves to live again!" _"This is the reality I don't want to accept. Monodramon is dead and he'll stay dead because I was so stupid and didn't realize my actions had consequences here. I killed him, it wasn't him giving his power or Chimairamon hitting him… it was my hand that ended his life. Monodramon; who I thought was worthless."_ I fell to my knees. "I'm the worthless one."

I looked at my hands once again; once again, still seeing the blood drip from them.

 _"_ _Worthless me. Petty me. But I'm so hurt by Monodramon's death… What if I died? Whether either by that car or out in the desert with Chimairamon… Monodramon would surely be sad for me… Monodramon might be the only one sad for me."_ "And still, I… I lost Monodramon to my own destructive ways!" I pounded my fist into the ground as my tears began flowing again.  
"What you did is something unforgivable. What is done cannot be undone. You can't erase the past. Everything is part of you: the good and the bad are both part of you." Elecmon said. My tears kept coming.  
 _"_ _I have to live accepting everything in me. That I'm the Digimon Kaiser… That I killed Monodramon and caused the suffering of countless others… It's fine… I'll be able to… Because, Monodramon, the memories of you being with me will make me strong."_ "That's right… Monodramon, you were always with me." I looked up from the ground. "Back then, when we explored the Digital World with Ken and Wormmon, you were there with me… My forgotten memories? No, the memories I locked away… But why? Why did I have to forget?"

 _Digital World. Date Unknown. Time Unknown._

We were wandering through the desert when a Gazimon tried to ambush Ken but thankfully Wormmon protected him.  
"Not anyone else's, just yours. Just like your heart is yours, don't forget that." Wormmon finished saying some encouraging words to Ken.  
"What's wrong, Osamu-chan?" Monodramon asked me.  
"Oh… it's just… I feel like I shouldn't let Wormmon take that burden he carries. Ken's my brother, I should be the one that's defending him, you know?" Monodramon chuckled. "What's so funny?"  
"That's what I like about you so much, Osamu-chan. Your compassion, your desire to be compassionate to those around you."  
"Yeah… I don't do as much of that at home as I should."  
"You don't give yourself enough credit. You're a good and compassionate person, Osamu-chan. That's who you truly are, and I'm proud to be your Digimon partner."

 _Village of Beginnings, Digital World. September 5th, 2002. 1644 Hours._

"I'm such an idiot… I was lying when I told myself I didn't have anything or anyone would miss me. It was easier to think that way. It was easier to hate myself. If I was gone, there would be people who would miss me. Wormmon, Mom, Dad… Ken… Monodramon, I'm sorry… I'll live accepting all the unforgivable things I've done." As soon as I said that, a bright blue light began shinning out of my pocket. I pulled it out and found it was my Crest that was glowing. "What…?"  
"That's… that's your Crest." Elecmon sounded just a surprised as me.  
"My Crest?" I noticed out of the corner of my eye a Digiegg that begins glowing the same color too.  
 _"_ _Osamu-chan, find me!"_ I felt like I was hearing a very young voice in my mind. _"Hurry up and find me!"_ I walked over to the egg. _"Hurry, hurry!"  
_ "This Digiegg…" Could it really be? "Why is it glowing like this?" I touched it and it exploded in light before the egg shattered and was replaced by a stone crib. And inside it, was a small blue and yellow creature with sort of a fleshy horn on its head… this could only be Monodramon's Baby Form.

"Mono…dramon?"  
 _"_ _Osamu-chan…"_ He wasn't saying anything but in his eyes and in my mind, I knew what he wanted to say. I slowly began to tear up. _"You looked for my egg?"_ I smiled through them and nodded.  
"I looked for it, really hard." I picked him up.  
 _"_ _Great! I knew you'd be able to find me!"  
_ "Monodramon…"  
 _"_ _What, Osamu-chan?"  
_ "Thank you for being born." My tears were really flowing. I wasn't the only one, he was crying too. I then embraced him, so happy that I could at least right one wrong at least.

"Thought I would find you here." I heard Ken's voice and looked up to see him and Wormmon approaching me.  
"Ken!" I got up and gave him a hard hug.  
"Hey, easy! Easy, Onii-san! You're crushing me!"  
"Oh, sorry!" I chuckled.  
"I see you found Monodramon…"  
"Or Ketomon as he is right now." Wormmon informed.  
"Yeah, I did… thank you, Ken."  
"For what?"  
"For still believing in me… even when I didn't believe in myself."  
"It's okay… it's okay…" We broke the hug. "Come on, Mom and Dad are really worried right now. Let's go home."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"He may never come back this time!" Ruki bawled into her hands as the sun began to set. Kaito sat with her on the couch trying to assure her but there was no real way he could assure her of anything.  
"Don't say that! I'm sure he'll come back!" The door opened and Ken walked in into the living room.  
"Hey, guess who I found at the beach?" Ken motioned and Osamu walked in behind him.  
"Osamu-chan!?" Ruki exclaimed as both her and Kaito quickly got up off the couch.  
"Why did you leave?" Kaito asked.  
"We thought you disappeared again…" Seeing his mother's tears, made Osamu begin to cry.  
"I'm ready to be your son again, Mom..."  
"What did you just say? 'Mom'? Did you say 'Mom'?"  
"Mom… thank you for giving birth to me." Ruki just cried more, though they were more joyful tears now "Dad… sorry for making you worry." Kaito just chuckled, happy that everything was good now. Soon, the entire Ichijouji family was embracing each other while Wormmon and Ketomon were near the door watching everything with some tears in their eyes too.

Osamu may have come to terms with his past and actions, but the threat to the Digital World was only now going to be greater…

* * *

So, I'm really happy with how this one came out. Even though he's alive, I still wanted to include somethings from the original episode like Osamu striking Ken or the phrase 'Only the worse kind of people...'

And also... look the Ichijouji's get a lot of crap, and yeah, they made some major mistakes, but I still consider them to be better parents because they still care at least, as opposed to some other parents I've seen on TV. Freaking Francine's parents, what bastards. Freaking just abandoning her at the airport because they wouldn't let babies in first class. (I know it's American Dad, but still.)

Anyways, that's all I got to say, see you next time.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank"_**


	30. Tail Hammer! Ankylomon!

Sorry, didn't really get a chance to work until Tuesday for this one.

Anyways, shoutouts to **Whiteling** , **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **Foggsaurus8** for the reviews.

And to **Yagami Kuzuki**... there's a right way and a wrong way to give criticism. You gave a completely wrong way that makes it more likely for me to ignore you. For instant, where does it say I can only do First Person POVs on Wattpad and not here?

Well, I've got that all out of the way... let's continue.

* * *

 **Chapter 29: Tail Hammer! Ankylomon!**

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _September 10th, 2002. 1923 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Boy, the last few days have been… quite the reawakening. Everything has been going much better at home; the mood has been greatly uplifted. Even better is Ken and I… it feels like we're back to the way we used to be. Plus, I've gotten Ketomon, or well, Hopmon as he is now, back. I still regret my actions and can never truly atone for them, but I'm certainly going to try to somewhat make it up… somehow. My heart may have changed, but one thing that hasn't is I'm still as sharp as ever. The past few days I've been playing catch up with my school work. Knocked it all out quick without much of a challenge. I'm actually planning to return to school tomorrow. The questions my classmates are probably going to ask. Eh, I'm not worried about that right now; that's tomorrow. Tonight, I'm just enjoying Mom's great cooking.  
"Osamu-chan, want some more?" Mom asked as I finished my bowl.  
"Um…" I felt a bit hesitant to ask as I didn't want to seem greedy.  
"You're still growing, so eat more!" Dad insisted. "Dear, this is delicious!" I finally decided.  
"Okay then… Mom…" I handed her my bowl.  
"Right away." She got up to get some more.  
"Hey, don't give him all the extras!" Ken joked which actually caused us all to chuckle.

After dinner, I went back to my room where I was bringing Hopmon some leftovers.  
"Osamu-chan? What's wrong?" Hopmon asked as I walked over to my computer. Hopmon; the best way I can describe him is that he looks like a fleshy bulb with two fins on the side of his head and a small horn on top.  
"I just… ate too much." I told him.  
"Why?"  
"Dad and Mom are so happy when they see me eat a lot like a normal boy…"  
"You shouldn't force yourself." Hopmon suggested.  
"I'm not forcing myself. I'm glad to see Dad and Mom happy."  
"Oh… Well, after eating…" Hopmon started bouncing and flailing on my bed. "Exercise! Exercise! Exercise!" I was surprised for a moment before I could help but smirk at him.  
"Hey, don't jump on the bed!"

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _September 11th, 2002. 0121 Hours._

I found myself waking up from my sleep as I heard my computer being turned on and the light of the screen illuminating my room. I shook the sleep from me before I sat up… and found a woman in red standing right by it! I gave a light gasp that woke up Hopmon.  
"Osamu-chan?"  
"Wh-who's that?" I questioned.  
"You're done with." The woman answered me. "You're not worth anything."  
"Who… are you?" I questioned once more with a hint of anger in my voice. She turned her head to me and I could now see she had long white hair and purple sunglasses over her eyes.  
"Poor you…" Suddenly, the shadows in my room began to spell out letters in kanji. Really familiar ones that made my blood run cold.  
 _'But what if I told you there was another option? A different world, where you wouldn't be crippled by the stupidity of society? A world that will completely free your mind and fulfill your destiny.'_ It was that e-mail again! The woman chuckled before she vanished and the computer turned off, leaving me and Hopmon alone in the room again.  
"Osamu-chan…" Hopmon sounded frightened. Once again, just when I think life is going well once more; life has to throw me another curve ball.

 _Digital World. September 11th, 2002. 1635 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

Our repairs of the Digital World were continuing as normal. Today, we were assisting in the repairing of an entire village. Everyone had their own job; Daisuke and XV-mon were gathering wood for construction along with Holsmon, Pegasmon and Nefertimon. Miyako and Hikari were doing some painting, Takeru was hammering nails, and I was bouncing on Digmon's back like a jackhammer as we were trying to get to the village's sewers. It was hard work, but I honestly felt proud of what I was doing. It was actually getting to be around sundown when we finally decided to call it a day.

"That's it for today." declared Daisuke as we stood on a cliff overlooking the village.  
"We'll continue tomorrow." Miyako nodded as the wind began to pick up.  
"There are still so many broken houses…" Hikari observed.  
"Yeah…" Tailmon agreed.  
"Not just in this town. In other places, too… All of us; Onii-chan, Taichi-san, we're all working hard to repair what was broken." Takeru informed.  
"That thing hurts the eyes… We should take it down." Daisuke turned to look at the deactivated Dark Tower that was not too far away.  
"I guess. But let's repair the town first. Show the village that the threat is over."  
"I agree." I spoke up.  
"Yeah…" Daisuke sighed in defeat. "I guess."

"I wonder what he'll do now…" Hikari whispered mostly to herself. Some of us turned to look at her. "Ichijouji Osamu."  
"He should help too." Daisuke took a step in front of us.  
"Right!" V-mon chimed.  
"But… he probably won't come to the Digital World anymore." Miyako pointed out. "I mean, Ken-kun's last message said he's up but apparently suffering some sort of self-inflicted amnesia or something."  
"True…" Hawkmon nodded.  
"Well, whatever the reason, I don't think the Digimon would forgive him either." Takeru believed.  
"Exactly." I said in a low voice; my anger was slowly bubbling.  
"Iori?" Armadimon turned to look at me, somewhat concerned.  
"I don't care if he honestly thought this was all just a game. I can't forgive him for everything he did."

"I'm starving!" Daisuke and the Digimon cried as we returned back to headquarters.  
"Ohagi! Ohagi!" Miyako cheered.  
"I'm sorry, I have to go to the dojo today." I broke the bad news to the others, much to Daisuke and Miyako's disappointment. "I have to leave now."  
"Do your best at practice!" Hikari encouraged.  
"Yes." I smiled before I grabbed a loose newspaper that got caught in the gate fence.  
"But Iori's Ohagi…" Daisuke and Miyako moaned as I opened up the newspaper. _'Follow up – the missing genius.'_ It was an article about Osamu. I growled before I crumpled up the paper which I would later throw away. I don't care if he is Ken's brother… I will never forgive that monster, no matter how remorseful he could become.

 _Odaiba Police Dojo, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 11th, 2002. 1841 Hours._

"Men! Men! Men! Men! Men! Men! Men!" I shouted as I kept repeatedly striking Grandfather before I just rammed him in the gut and knocked him to the floor and struck him three more times. I was filled with a rage. I was just imagining that it wasn't Grandfather I was fighting but Osamu.  
"Enough, Iori! Enough!" Grandfather shouted with brought me out of my trance. "Why…" He panted. "Why don't we call it a day?"  
"Yes! Thank you very much!" I bowed before we both kneeled on the floor and began to remove our equipment. I took off my helmet before I felt him tap me on the shoulder. He then dug into his bag and pulled out two packets of Chu-Chu Jelly.  
"Would you like some Chu-Chu?" I nodded and took one from him as he began to drink his. "What a surprise… I used to think jelly was something you eat with a spoon, but being able to drink it like this… When I first drank this, I realized I still had a lot to learn. What about you?" I didn't really say anything. I just went along with him and drank the jelly with him.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

It was going to be a long night for the Chosen Children as they were all very tired from all the labor they had done during the day. At Daisuke's, he and Chibimon were already snoring logs; so loud in fact that his sister Jun was putting a pillow to her ears just in an attempt to muffle the sound.  
"Um, can I take a break?" Poromon asked as he was bouncing on Miyako's back at her place.  
"A little more to the right!" Poromon was essentially being used like a massage ball.  
"To the right?"  
"Ahhh…" She sighed in absolute relief. "This is paradise…" At Takeru's apartment, he was just putting on the final touches to a house of cards he was working on while Patamon stood close and watched. Once he finished, he leaned back in his chair and relaxed… before Patamon's nose twitched. Patamon couldn't control himself; he ended up sneezing and blowing the whole card house down.  
"What about this one?" Hikari pointed to a picture of a castle in a book she had while sitting with Tailmon. And at Iori's, Upamon was enjoying some food, though how he was holding chopsticks without any arms was hard to understand. Meanwhile, Iori was sitting beside him and holding his Shinai and being in deep thought.

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 12th, 2002. 1534 Hours._

The Children were all standing around the computer at the Headquarters when Daisuke finally showed up.  
"You're late, Daisuke!" Chibimon informed.  
"I can't stand it… he could have just let me go." Daisuke said.  
"What did you do?" Miyako asked. Daisuke nervously chuckled upon being asked that.  
"I broke a window playing soccer. I apologized, but he wouldn't forgive me…"  
"Again?" Iori muttered.  
"Daisuke-kun's done it so many times." Takeru rolled his eyes. Hikari nodded with him, to Daisuke's worry.  
"Not you too, Hikari-chan!" The rest of the gang couldn't help but give a bit of a laugh at his reaction.  
"Okay, let's get to it! Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" Miyako shouted.

The moment the children arrived at the village, they found themselves swarmed by a whole horde of happy Punimon that had big smiles on their faces.  
"Who are these guys?" questioned Daisuke. The Punimon couldn't really speak but their noises they were making sure sounded like they were very excited to see the humans. All of a sudden, Iori came to a realization about the Punimon swarm.  
"Ah, the kindergarten from yesterday!"  
"We fixed it so they came back!" Armadimon added.  
"We… did that?" Daisuke sounded confused.  
"Yes." Iori confirmed.  
"So these are the children." said Hawkmon.  
"I see… when we rebuild the towns, the Digimon will come back, right?" Miyako theorized and awaited the others answer to it. She got her answer from the Punimon who were all jumping up and down in pure joy.

"They're full of energy, huh?" Takeru observed.  
"They're just noisy." Daisuke tried to cover his ears. Hikari kneeled down and picked one up.  
"They're so cute…"  
"Yeah, they sure are!" Once again, when Hikari says something, Daisuke's tune immediately matches hers.  
"Daisuke, your attitude changes too much." V-mon practically was calling out Daisuke on his crush of Hikari. Daisuke gave him a quick glare before he dismissed it and focused on the task at hand. He pulled out his D-3 and held it up high.  
"Okay, time to get to work! Let's go, V-mon!"  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON…!" It took a moment for everyone to realize that V-mon didn't evolve at all. "Huh?" V-mon looked at himself.  
"What are you doing? Try again!"  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON…!" Once more, same result. "Uh… I can't evolve, Daisuke…"

"Because you're not trying hard enough! Come on, get it together!" insisted Daisuke.  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON…!" Third time was not the charm for him. "I can't…" V-mon groaned in defeat.  
"That's weird… you could evolve yesterday."  
"Are you feeling sick?" Hawkmon suggested. V-mon shook his head in disagreement.  
"Are you hungry?" Armadimon gave his suggestion.  
"He ate a bunch of snacks just a little while ago." Daisuke reminded.  
"Ate too much?" wondered Miyako. Daisuke snapped his finger as he believed he had the answer.  
"I got it! You haven't fought in a while, so you're out of shape. Besides, all you do is eat. You need to go on a diet!" The others were muttering with each other while Daisuke was trying to cheer up his partner. "Cheer up! Wanna try Armor Evolution?"

"Ah, it's fine! You don't have to evolve." Miyako informed him as the others broke the huddle. "Iori, we'll do it, right?"  
"Yes." Takeru, Hikari and their Digimon began walking away.  
"But why…? Where are you going, Hikari-chan?" asked Daisuke.  
"We just want to check what we fixed yesterday." Takeru informed.  
"We'll be right back." Hikari assured.  
"Hikari-chan!" Daisuke moaned before Miyako helped him up.  
"Hey, hey! There's a job for you guys too! Okay?"  
"But…"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

We wandered off into the nearby woods to try our attempts at evolving considering that V-mon was having trouble.  
"Well, it's a no go for me." Tailmon reminded.  
"We'll try it." Takeru said. "Patamon, let's do it."  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON…!" He just stayed as Patamon; just like V-mon. "I can't, Takeru…"  
"So Patamon can't evolve either…" Tailmon sighed.  
"Why?" I questioned. Takeru shook his head as he had no idea. All he did was turn and looked towards the nearby Dark Tower.  
"Maybe…" He hesitated to say what he wanted to say but he eventually said it. "That Dark Tower started working again?" I could see why he didn't want to say it. If that was the case, then could that mean that Osamu had returned? I couldn't wrap my mind around that. I truly believed his reaction to everything at the end was genuine and that he truly felt so disgusted with his actions. But, then why are the towers reactivated again?

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Miyako and Iori took Daisuke aside to try to take his mind off the whole evolution hiccup. Miyako found a small ball and began inflating it before handing it to Daisuke.  
"Here you go!"  
"Then, we'll continue the underground repairs from yesterday." Iori informed as he and Digmon headed away.  
"Ok."  
"So, why do we have to be babysitters?" Daisuke questioned.  
"We need someone to look after them, right? And they seem to like you, Daisuke!" The Punimon all jumped up and down. "See?" Miyako then got on Holsmon and took off. "I'm counting on you!"  
"Hey, wait!" He heard a familiar noise and both him and V-mon slowly turn their heads back to the Punimon. "Did you just… poo?"

"Here goes!" Daisuke started to dribble the ball like a soccer ball a few minutes later. "See? This is how you control the ball! Let's so, V-mon!" He kicked the ball over to V-mon.  
"Ok!" V-mon blocked the ball with his chest.  
"Everyone, follow the ball!" Daisuke told the Punimon who happily followed along.  
"Daisuke, pass!" V-mon kicked it back to him but the Punimon got their heads on it and the ball started to bounce around.  
"Alright! There it goes!" The Punimon were so happy playing which actually made Daisuke feel good. "Come on! Hang in there!" He laughed as Miyako watched on.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Looks like it went well." I observed Daisuke playing with the Punimon as Hikari and I walked up to Miyako.  
"I left it to them. I knew he'd be perfect!" She said. Hikari chuckled as she watched Daisuke run along with the Punimon and the ball.  
"Even among Digimon children, Daisuke-kun still ends up as the leader."  
"So, how did it go? Did you figure it out?" Miyako brought our attention back to the evolving issue.  
"No… and we couldn't evolve normally either." I told her.  
"I see…"  
"Well, let's just see how things go for now. Hey, where's Iori-kun?"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"It's a compete wreck…" Digmon observed as we got into the sewers. "I can't stand what that Kaiser did." I stared forward as I agreed with him. My blood ever more boiling thinking about it all. "Iori?" He brought me back to reality.  
"Let's start, Digmon."  
"Dagyaa!" Before he could begin however, I felt a sharp pain cut across my left cheek that was delivered by a tiny object. Digmon turned towards where the object went and it turned out to be a Digimon the size of my fingernail. It was a small black ball with arms and legs and a thunderbolt on its forehead. "That's Thunderballmon! He's a Digimon whose body is constantly releasing electricity. He's small, but he attacks with the power of ten million volts." My eyes widened in fear as he turned around to look at us once more. He flew all over the place around Digmon who couldn't get a bead on him.  
"Why is he attacking us? He doesn't have an Evil Ring or a Spiral!" I wondered.  
"Iori, what should we do, dagyaa?"

 _"_ _What do we do…? Is It right to fight him?"_ I thought to myself. I felt so conflicted at the moment. I mean, we'll defend ourselves without question; that much is for sure. I have no problem about that, but to fight back, to properly attack a Digimon not under any sort of dark influence… My attention was brought back to the situation at hand once more when Digmon cried out in pain as he was struck by a heavy electrical attack on his head. The attack was so strong, it blew a massive hole in the sewers that it went through the multiple layers of earth and the surface above. I could see multiple pieces of debris also being shot way further into the sky. The pain that Digmon suffered was too much for him and unfortunately, he devolved back into Armadimon. The two of us then fell to the ground of the sewer before we hit the floor hard.  
"Iori…" Armadimon groaned as I looked back up towards Thunderballmon.  
 _"_ _Why is he attacking without any reason?"_ There has to be an answer to his aggression and why he's taking it out on us. There was only one answer I could think of that would make any sense to me. "Could it be… the Kaiser!?" The debris that had been thrown out began falling all around Armadimon and I as Thunderballmon dived down on us again before he stopped.

I soon saw a giant piece of rock being grabbed by Thunderballmon before he tossed it at us; planning to finish us off then and there. I looked down and growled as I closed my eyes and awaited being crushed by the rock.  
 _"_ _I can't fight…"_ It was my last thought in both senses. I couldn't bring myself to have Armadimon directly attack a Digimon not under an evil spell or control, nor could Armadimon really do much. Of course, I guess I clearly underestimated him for what he did next.  
"Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!" Ankylomon looked like a much bigger and tougher version of Armadimon with large spikes all over him and a large metal flail on his tail. Before the rock could land, he used it to smash the rock to pieces, covering us in its debris but not bringing any harm. He then used his arm to hold back Thunderballmon who tried to drill right through me but was only stopped by strong armor plating.  
"Dagyaa!" He swatted him away.

"You… evolved…" I muttered in compete surprise.  
"How come I evolved, dagyaa?" He was just as surprised as me.  
"I don't know." I turned my head to look outside. "I don't know why V-mon couldn't evolve earlier, either."  
"Anyway, we have to get out, dagyaa!"  
"Yes!" Ankylomon jumped out of the sewer and we were once more on the surface. He then put me down on the ground.  
"Iori, hide somewhere!"  
"Y-you're going to fight?"  
"Don't worry, I'll try to get rid of him." He turned to look back into the sewer but apparently couldn't find Thunderballmon. "Huh?"

Suddenly, a massive field of debris exploded around me and sent me flying into the sky, causing me to scream in sudden fear.  
"Iori!" Ankylomon called out for me.  
"Ankylomon!" I shouted as I flew higher and higher. Thunderballmon had come up with a brilliant plan; put me out of range of my Digimon, leaving me wide open to attack. I wondered for a moment if I thought I was gonna feel any pain before the end, but I felt myself being grabbed by something that jumped up to me and was bringing me back down to the ground. I found myself in the arms of the large purple dragon like man. He had on green pants, had armor on his claws, shoulders and tail and had a large mask with a sharp blade over his entire head with long red hair coming from it. He quickly handed me back off to Ankylomon before he started to preform multiple backflips as Thunderballmon came after him.

"That Digimon…" I continued to observe as him and Thunderballmon began to exchange blows.  
"I've never seen him before, dagyaa…"  
"Iori!" I heard Daisuke call out to me before I saw the others running towards us.  
"Are you alright?" Hikari asked.  
"Yes!" "Dagyaa!" Both myself and Ankylomon responded.  
"Is that Digimon…?" Holsmon questioned Ankylomon and I as we continued to watch the fight my mysterious rescuer was in.  
"Yes! Armadimon evolved!"  
"Evolve?" "Armadimon?" Hikari and Daisuke inquired.  
"Then, who are those?" Patamon pointed to the fight.  
"I don't know." Ankylomon informed.  
"The purple one saved me…" I explained.

The fight reached a fever pitch as the purple reptile Digimon decided the fight had gone on long enough and his claws began to glow.  
"Strike Claw!" He ran fast towards Thunderballmon and passed right through him before a moment later; Thunderballmon exploded into data! We were all shocked about what he had just done.  
"Why did he do that?" Daisuke exclaimed as the Digimon turned his attention towards us.  
"It's horrible…" Miyako muttered. The Digimon held still for a moment before he performed multiple backflips and landed upon the top of the ridge that overlooked the village. He began to glow until he shrank down and devolve… into Monodramon! As if on cue, then walking up was the last person we expected to see in the Digital World again: Osamu Ichijouji.  
"Osamu Ichijouji…" Daisuke said. Osamu was now dressed in a white polo shirt and black denim jeans as he stared at us with a stern look on his face.  
"He came back to the Digital World?" Hikari couldn't believe the words she was saying.  
"And Monodramon's back too? And can evolve?" Takeru added. The two of them turned and disappeared over the ridge line as we just continued to stare.  
"He saved Iori…" Daisuke reminded.  
"I… guess…" Miyako admitted. I just gained a stern look on my face.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Are you sure we don't need to tell them?" Ken asked Osamu as they walked away.  
"It's none of their concern. Doubt they'd believe us anyways… Let them focus on fixing the Digital World. We'll take care of that woman. By the way, you okay, Monodramon?"  
"I'll be fine, Osamu-chan."  
"She managed to somehow lose me. Sorry, guys." Wormmon apologized.  
"It's okay; you guys did your best." Osamu encouraged. "We'll get another chance."  
"Yeah… you're right, Onii-san. Let's just go home."

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

We contacted Ken immediately afterwards but we got no response from him. It was getting close to sundown when the Punimon were getting restless again. So Daisuke quickly solved the problem and was playing ball with them again.  
"Here we go! C'mon, c'mon! Over there!" Daisuke kept up with the Baby Digimon while we all watched him from a swing set.  
"You sure are popular!" Takeru said.  
"Shut up." Daisuke scoffed. "Okay, here I come!" He chased back after them.  
"That's our Daisuke…" Miyako smiled. I turned around to look back at the ridge before I finally realized something was off about it.  
"It's not there." I informed. "The Dark Tower that was there this afternoon isn't there anymore." The others were surprised.  
"You're right…"  
"But when…?" Takeru wondered.  
"Maybe that's why you could evolve." I picked up Armadimon.  
"Dagyaa?" There were just too many questions and no real answers to everything that was going on right now.

A little later after we got back home, I was once again doing kendo with Grandfather once more.  
"Men! Men! Men!" Like yesterday, my rage and anger was fueling my attacks. My mind was just so confused. Why did Osamu save me? Why him, of all people? I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. My thoughts and actions proved to be my undoing as I lost focus and Grandfather quickly overwhelmed me.  
"Dou!" He struck me in the chest and won the fight. "Iori, constantly striking the head is not kendo."  
"Yes…" I panted.  
"You need to be more flexible, in heart and mind."  
"Like Chu-Chu jelly?" I suggested.  
"You got me there." He began to laugh which I soon joined in too. Still, my thoughts remained focused on earlier.

What game was Osamu playing now…?

* * *

Don't really have much to say for this one, though for a moment, it kinda looked like it was gonna be a bit shorter in terms of word length, like my Cockatrimon episode from Sweat and Tears.

Take care everyone.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	31. Knight of the Sky! Aquilamon!

I don't know where I am exactly... but in terms of the actual episodes, we're, as Bon Jovi puts it, halfway home. (Living on a Prayer!)

Shoutouts to **Digimon** **AT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **Whiteling** for the continued review support, and my drive to keep forward with this story.

Anyways... let's continue with the show.

* * *

 **Chapter 30: Knight of the Sky! Aquilamon!**

 _Odaiba Elementary School, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 20th, 2002. 1059 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

It had been a week since our discover that Osamu had returned to the Digital World and Monodramon was back. Since then, nothing has really happened. Our efforts to rebuild weren't having any sort of trouble. For most of the group, they didn't know how to feel about all this. And we couldn't really know what was going on with Osamu because Ken hasn't answered our messages for almost three weeks now. Something was off but we just couldn't put our finger on it.

However, the last few days had me thinking. After what had happened, I had the idea in my head of asking Osamu to join us. I know it sounds crazy but he is a Chosen Child, and I do believe that he regrets his actions. That day is proof that he isn't the same person. Of course, he did have Monodramon kill Thunderballmon which I know will probably turn away the others… but considering I've ordered a Digimon to be killed too… maybe that's why I'm more open to the idea. Clearly there are Digimon out there that will try to hurt us no matter what and sometimes we have to make a tough call. The older Chosen knew that and Osamu does too. I decided to finally talk with the others today about this.

The first was Hikari, who today, we had to help serve out today's lunch. We were carrying a large pot of soup up the stairs while I tried to convince Hikari of my suggestion.  
"But Osamu Ichijouji has some good points."  
"You think so?"  
"Well, he saved us."  
"In the end, yes…" We placed the soup down in a class room and began serving.  
"So, you think he had other intentions?"  
"I don't know."  
"You don't know?"  
"Well…" _"We should watch him a little longer. I wish Ken would just reply to us about what is going on, maybe then I could have a more definitive answer about Daisuke's idea."_

During free period, I decided to talk to Iori, who was currently doing some kendo training outside.  
"A lot of things happened, but we should just put it behind us." Iori just stayed silent and continued to swing his shinai. He didn't really need to say anything for me to understand where he stood with the idea. "I guess it's not that easy." I sighed and got up to look for Miyako; maybe she'd be more understanding.  
 _"_ _Of course it's not. Not if you think about the Digimon that were harmed by the Kaiser."_ Iori thought to himself.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I was sitting in the computer lab with our Digimon who were happily eating when Daisuke came in and told me his idea of having Osamu join us. It's not that I was fully opposed to it… it's just… I'm hesitant because he doesn't look like he's proven to be any more different than he was before. After all, this might just be one giant ruse to regroup and regain his power; sounds unlikely, but none of us can be sure, not even Ken if he would ever get around to answering us.

"I mean, he's not the Ichijouji from before…" Daisuke kept giving his argument.  
"You think so…?"  
"Yeah!"  
"Well, I think he finally realized that Digimon are living beings when Monodramon died. But in that battle the other day, even though it was an enemy, he still killed a Digimon. I just don't know… Can you really say he's not the same as before?"  
 _"If you knew what I did, you'd probably be a bit more understanding."_ He gave me a look before he huffed and walked out of the room.  
"Daisuke!" Chibimon ran after him.

"What's wrong with Daisuke-kun?" Takeru asked as he walked in with Patamon.  
"He wants Osamu Ichijouji to join us."  
"Look, I don't care if he is Ken-kun's brother; I'm against the whole idea…"  
"I agree. I wonder if we asked Ken-kun, you think he'd say the same thing?"  
"Who knows?"  
"Well, I don't think Ichijouji-san wants to, anyway. People don't change that easily."  
"Tailmon did…" He reminded me of the old stories.  
"That's different than this. Tailmon was forced to be Vamdemon's servant. Osamu Ichijouji's actions were all of his own doing. After everything, he hasn't changed."  
 _"No, I think Ichijouji has changed like Daisuke-kun said."  
_ "By the way, Takeru-kun? You figured out why the Dark Tower from before was working again?"  
"And why it disappeared? No idea, I'm afraid."

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 20th, 2002. 1520 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"You're serious about this?" I asked Daisuke as he told me of his idea to invite Osamu to join us.  
"Look, I thought maybe you or Taichi-san would be more understanding about this, ya know, considering you've killed Digimon before." He explained the whole Thunderballmon situation to me.  
"So why didn't you go to Taichi first?"  
"You were closer." He admitted, which made Guilmon laugh. "I'm serious though… despite everything he's done, he is one of us."  
"You're right… he is a Chosen Child even if the others don't want to admit it. But you have to understand why they're hesitant to the whole idea."  
"I know, destroying Thunderballmon didn't help."  
"Exactly… we've said this before, some Digimon are evil and the only way to stop them is to destroy them; as hard as that decision is."

"Yeah… well, I… need your help for what I'm gonna do next."  
"What is it?"  
"I'm going to go straight to the source of it all."  
"You don't mean…"  
"You mind coming with me to Tamachi to just simply talk with him?" I was wide eyed about that.  
"I… I… don't…"  
"Come on, I'd feel better if someone could talk to him. You of all people considering you've met him a few times before." I sighed before I finally relented. I don't believe Osamu would join, but he isn't wrong about at least talking to him. He picked Chibimon up off the floor and heads right out the door.  
"Guilmon… Stay and watch the place okay?"  
"Okay then."

 _Tamachi Middle School, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 20th, 2002. 1742 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. - Ken Ichijouji_

Osamu was basically sticking around with most of the other students as they were all awaiting their results on their test when I showed up not too long before sundown. They were actually so focused on them that they didn't notice Osamu walking down the stairs to meet with me.  
"Unbelievable." "He's gone for four months and it's as if he's never left." "How is he aces these things every time?" "Think he's cheating?" "You kidding? It would be easier to believe that!" "Jeez, I wish I could make grades like him." Both of us chuckled as we let all the other students be enamored with Osamu's scores.  
"Man, I wonder if that's gonna be the same with me in a few years." I looked back as we left.  
"Probably; right now. I just wanna go home." We mostly made small talk with each other on the way home… until we found Ross and Daisuke waiting for us up ahead. We soon were all under the bridge and Ross was tossing rocks into the bay as he was talking to Osamu. I asked Daisuke what was going on to which he turned the question around on me and I told him it was complicated. He didn't say anything more after that.

"So, what is you wanted to talk about, Ross-kun?" Osamu asked.  
"Well, this was mostly Daisuke's idea, but it is a good one."  
"That is?"  
"Mostly… do you think you can apologize to everyone and the Digimon? I mean, this is your choice; I'm just giving it a suggestion. We can set it all up for you if you wish. What do you think?"  
"You think simply saying sorry-"  
"Look, you made a mistake and simply saying sorry isn't gonna make everything okay immediately. But it does prove to the others that you're sincere about everything and that you regret your actions. Do you?" Osamu just sighed.  
"Yeah… Okay."  
"You're alright with it?" Daisuke spoke up. "Okay, then! Glad we could talk!"  
"But… do you think they'll forgive me if I apologize?" The three of us had nervous looks.  
"Maybe not right away, but…" Daisuke admitted.  
"I'm certain everyone will understand. We do." Ross said.

"You think so?" Osamu turned to look at Ross.  
"Yeah, I do. After all, you're a Chosen Child just like us." He looked a bit surprised by that.  
"Chosen Child?" He thought himself as the last person to be considered a Chosen Child after what he had done.  
"Look, we've all had our own problems, but in the end, we're still a team. We're partners."  
"Partners…" He turned away. "I'm sorry… can we leave the whole 'team' and 'partners' part out?" He turned and walked away. "Anyway, I'm sorry."  
"I still can't believe you guys came out here and aren't gonna ask anything." I said.  
"We'd love to know, but if there's a reason why you're keeping us in the dark… we do trust you, Ken, okay?" Daisuke informed. Chibimon then popped his head out of Daisuke's bag.  
"He can apologize but he doesn't want to team up with the rest of us?"  
"I'm sorry… I think he truly does, but he just wants some time to get his feelings sorted out, you know?" I told them.  
"Same thing with Yamato…" Ross muttered. "Yeah, we understand. See ya around, Ken-kun. If you don't mind… Mimi and I have a date tomorrow." Ross walked to opposite direction with Daisuke following behind. I ran to catch up with Osamu.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

I followed Ross and Daisuke to Tamachi where I should've known the two of them would try to find the Ichijouji brothers. I was more surprised that Daisuke managed to get Ross go along with this plan of his but dismissed it as I saw them parting from each other.  
"Daisuke's trying hard!" Patamon observed from on top of my head.  
"Yeah… Ichijouji-san doesn't seem to look at others the way he used to… but he looks determined. Just what's in his mind? And what does Ken-kun know that we don't?"

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Takeru called my place to inform me of what Daisuke had done. It was surprising to say the least about it all.  
"Anyway, I understand what Daisuke was trying to say." I then hung up.  
"Miyako, what's wrong?" Momoe asked me as the rest of my siblings were all sitting on the couch. I explained the situation to them… a very censored version. They don't need to know anything about Osamu or the Digimon. "Well… I think he's serious."  
"You think so?"  
"Yeah. But what really matters is what your feeling are."  
"My feelings?"  
"Will you be able to forgive your boyfriend?" My eyes widened. "This is Ichijouji Ken we're talking about, right?" They do know that Ken hangs out with us, and that I do have a crush on him, but…  
"'This week, Geminis with AB blood will be lucky in love if you open up.'" Chizuru read from her magazine.  
"Don't get any ideas! He's not my boyfriend!" I shouted.  
"Well, that doesn't matter." Mantarou dismissed. "Just don't regret your decision."

"My feelings…" I muttered to myself as I laid in my bed. "My feelings, huh…?"  
"If it bothers you so much, why not ask Ichijouji Osamu himself, or at least talk to Ken-san again…" Poromon suggested.  
"I doubt he wants to talk to me. He doesn't really want to talk to any of us at the moment." I sighed. "Believe me, I would… but… I don't know."  
"Is this Osamu or Ken-san we're still talking about?"  
"I don't even know anymore… Osamu-san mostly but I was referring to Ken-kun a moment ago…" Didn't we promise shortly after finding Osamu was the Kaiser that we'd help each other out with our problems, Ken? What happened to that?

 _Digital World. September 20th, 2002. 2029 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

"Stingmon! Keep your focus on Snimon!" "Strikedramon! Deal with Tyranomon!" Ken and I gave our respective Digimon their orders as they focused on the two attacking Digimon. Stingmon quickly dodged the Shadow Scythes before delving a series of rapid kicks that destroyed Snimon. As for Strikedramon, he managed to front flip of a fireball before diving down with glowing claws and cutting the dinosaur to ribbons.  
"Good work, you two!" I gave my praise.  
"But still…" Strikedramon turned his attention to the valley of Dark Towers ahead. Any of my creations that remain standing will remain a threat to the Digital World… especially if that woman gets her hands anywhere near them.

 _Digital World. September 21st, 2002. 1231 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Mimi Tachikawa_

You know, today was more or less supposed to be a date for me and Ross originally. The idea of having it in a much more calmed down Digital World was a great idea. However, now it turned into more of just baby siting a group of Yukimibotamon that were in the area. They looked like Botamon except their fur was white instead of black.  
"I think they like your food." Ross admitted as the little guys were chowing down a small meal of marshmallows I made.  
"Really? Well, I'm glad they like it! But…" I turned my head around. "Where did Palmon go? The marshmallows will be gone if she doesn't come back soon."  
"I think she mentioned something about getting some herbs for a tea she had planned for you two."  
"Mimi! Mimi!" We heard Palmon's voice cry out.  
"That doesn't sound like a good 'Mimi' from her!" Ross stood up.  
"Palmon?" We ran out towards the canyon in front of the large dam nearby and saw Palmon running towards us.

"Mimi! I have to evolve, quickly!"  
"Palmon! What's wrong?" Our answer came when a large golem Digimon dropped from above. Palmon quickly used her Poison Ivy to grab a tree and escaped before she was crushed.  
"That's Golemon!" Guilmon exclaimed. "His body is rock hard as he's essentially made from strong boulders! And Curse Crimson is not something you want to be on the receiving end of!" Palmon latched onto a tree.  
"That was close…" She breathed a sigh of relief… before flew forward and struck her in the stomach!  
"Palmon!" I screamed as I ran to her. "Palmon! Are you alright!?"  
"H-hurry… we have to stop him… He's… trying to destroy the dam…" Palmon muttered.  
"Why would he do that!?" Guilmon shouted.  
"If that dam breaks…" Ross observed, before he turned his attention to the city at the other end of the dam. "The whole city will be washed away… thousands will drown…"  
"Hurry… tell… everyone…" Palmon said before she fell unconscious thanks to her injuries.  
"Palmon! Palmon…"

Ross gave me a tap on the shoulder.  
"Leave it to me, okay, sweetie?" I nodded. "Guilmon!"  
"Right! Guilmon, evolve! GROWMON!" Growmon jumped down into the canyon as started running for Golemon. Meanwhile, Ross pulled out his D-Terminal. "Probably gonna need some help." He was right as Golemon easily just slapped Growmon as he got close.  
"Ugh… dislocate by jaw next time, won't ya?" Growmon tried as hard as he could for almost fifteen minutes to stop Golemon but the Digimon was hell-bent on getting to the dam.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Ross-san!" Daisuke yelled out as we ran up to them after receiving the emergency Ross sent.  
"Mimi-oneesama!" I shouted.  
"Palmon!" Daisuke notice Mimi holding Palmon. "What happened?"  
"That one…!" Mimi pointed to a stone Digimon fighting Growmon. "He's trying to destroy the dam!"  
"Who's that?"  
"It's Golemon! Why he's doing it, no one knows!" informed Ross. The small white baby Digimon were all jumping up and down with panicked looks on their faces. "If he takes out the dam, that whole city will drown!" We could see that the city would be destroyed it the dam broke.  
"Alright, leave it to us!" Daisuke assured. "We're counting on you, guys!" He turned to the Digimon.  
"Right!" They all exclaimed and jumped into the canyon trench with Golemon now climbing the dam after shaking off Growmon one last time who then devolved into Guilmon.

"In any case, we have to get him away from the dam!" Lighdramon explained.  
"Careful! I don't know who he is, but he isn't a normal Golemon!" Guilmon said before Lighdramon stopped next to him and got him on his back and got him to a safe location where Ross ran to reclaim him.  
"Sanctuary Bind!" Pegasmon and Nefertimon tied their attack around Golemon and restrained him.  
"Now!" Lighdramon ordered. "Blue Thunder!" "Gold Rush!" "Autumn Wind!" The attacks struck the golem in the back and he was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. "Did we get him?" questioned Lighdramon. The smoke dispersed and revealed that he didn't even have a scratch! Instead, he tried moving and was actually dragging down Takeru and Hikari's Digimon. "He's tough!"  
"What great power…" Pegasmon groaned.  
"Everyone, aim for the Evil Ring!" exclaimed Nefertimon.  
"Leave that to me!" Shurimon jumped up to get a closer look at the attacking Digimon. "I can't see it anywhere!"  
"Then, he's not being controlled?" Lighdramon and the rest of us were just confused about all this.

"It's just like Thunderballmon last week!" Digmon recalled. Golemon shook his head again and the two Digimon restraining him slammed hard against the dam walls.  
"Pegasmon!" "Nefertimon!" Takeru and Hikari called out for their Digimon. Golemon continued climbing higher.  
"I won't let you!" Lighdramon jumped up to him, but the four holes in Golemon's back lit up and fired a toxic cloud of gas that blew back Lighdramon.  
"Lighdramon!" Now it was Daisuke's turn to shout for his partner.  
"You will pay!" Shurimon jumped up once more. "Autumn-" Golemon took his arm and smashed Shurimon in the chest!  
"Shurimon!" I cried.  
"This is bad!" Iori exclaimed as Golemon had no more distractions and smashed his fist through the wall of the dam before a large torrent of water shot out.

"What now?" Lighdramon questioned as a small flood of water began flowing out of the damaged dam. The white baby Digimon all cried out in fear as they saw the waters running past us.  
"Guys, protect the city!" Mimi ordered.  
"Understood!" Our Digimon turned their attention away from the dam and unto the water; but not before Nefertimon launched a Rosetta Stone that plugged up the hole. That stopped anymore water from coming but there still remained the water that had already gotten through. The Digimon were quick in their response to the water. Shurimon and Lighdramon tore down several rows of large trees along the canyon. Digmon jumped in front of the water and cracked open a trench for the water to flow into. Nefertimon and Pegasmon used their binding attack to gather all of the trees and place them as a wall behind the trench to hold off the tide and keep the water from just flowing past the crack. They quickly picked up Digmon before he could be drowned and the planed worked perfectly.  
"Alright!" They cheered.  
"You did it!" Daisuke praised.  
"Thank you, everyone!" Mimi gave her thanks.

"They stopped that tide… but it ain't gonna matter if Golemon takes out the whole dam!" Ross rejoined us and made us refocused on the threat to the dam.  
"What a guy!" Daisuke growled.  
"He's serious…" Hikari feared.  
"Serious?" I questioned.  
"He's serious about destroying the dam."  
"But why would he do something like that for?"  
"Let's go!" Lighdramon got the Digimon to follow him once more as they headed back to the dam.  
"He's trying to destroy the city." Iori said.  
"Not just the city, but the Digimon who live there too." added Takeru.  
"I know that, but…" I turned my head back to the dam. "But why? Why do such a horrible thing?"

"If he's serious, then we have to get serious too." Daisuke declared.  
"Serious? What do you mean, 'serious'?" I questioned him.  
"Defeating him. No… more than simply doing that."  
"You mean killing him? We can't do that!" I shouted. "Daisuke, calm down! Calm down and think!"  
"Calm down and do what?"  
"'Do what'? Our first priority is to protect the dam."  
"Without destroying the enemy?"  
"If we can. No, we have to!" I kept insisting while the other Digimon kept fighting but showing no signs of slowing Golemon down.  
"That's impossible. We may be able to stop him, but… Only for a little while." Takeru admitted.

"Is destroying him our only choice?" Hikari was just as hesitant as me about all this. "Like how Monodramon and Ichijouji Osamu did?"  
"I won't do it!" Iori shouted. "If we do that, we're no different from him!"  
"Exactly!" I said.  
"Well, guess what!? Then I'm no different from him because I have done it too!" Daisuke exclaimed.  
"Chimairamon was an abom-"  
"I MEANT TORTAMON! XV-MON AND I DESTROYED HIM!" All of us gasped and looked shocked at Daisuke's declaration. "He refused to give up… he just kept coming after us. We knocked him down, he'd come back again; he was obsessed with killing us. It was either us or him!"  
"Daisuke…"  
"You made the right call, Daisuke-kun." Ross spoke up.  
"Eh!?" I turned to him. "You can't be-"

"Alright, Miyako-kun, Iori-kun, this is a lesson you need to learn sooner than later. Us older Chosen Children… the only reason we're alive is because we had to scale a mountain of bodies; Digimon that we had to strike down without a second of hesitation! You have to realize that not all Digimon are good, some are just pure evil. You can't free them from a dark force, you can't reason with them; their sole purpose is to see you dead. You'll have to make the hard and unfortunate choice. It's either kill or be killed out here! Now get that through your skulls and wake up!" Ross screamed as he was red in the face. He obviously looked ashamed that he had to say all that but I suppose to him… it might actually be the only way to get through to us still hesitant to strike down Golemon.  
 _"_ _How could Osamu do it? Because he knew it was the only way? Is Ross and Daisuke right? Are we too naïve?"_ I thought to myself.  
"That's why I think that Osamu-san struck down Thunderballmon! Because he knew it was the only way!" Daisuke continued to defend Osamu's actions.  
 _"_ _Why do you think so? Because you believe he's not the same as before? I can't… can I?"_

"Uh, Mimi-san? What are you doing?" Iori asked. We turned our attention to Mimi who was on her D-Terminal.  
"I'm contacting Ken-kun and his brother."  
"You're going to get their help?" I questioned.  
"Yeah. Is that wrong?"  
"No… but would they come?" I can't believe I'm doubting Ken now… but, with the past few weeks, I don't know anymore. I mean, I do want them to come, but I just can't be honest with myself…

Our attention went back to the fight where Shurimon was struck once more, fell to the ground hard and devolved back to Hawkmon.  
"Hawkmon!" I called out.  
"Damn it…" Lighdramon growled as the Digimon surrounded Golemon who was now on top of the dam. He used that toxic gas attack of his again and blew all the rest of the Digimon down to the ground with Hawkmon. And just like with him, they all devolved back into their basic forms. Now there was nothing to stop Golemon who roared in victory.  
"No good! If that dam is destroyed…" reminded Daisuke once more. "The city is done for!" Golemon swing his fist into the dam once more… only for Stingmon to grab him by the arm.  
"Stingmon!" The next second, Monodramon's Adult-Form jumped in and kicked the restrained Golemon in the face. We could see on the other side of the canyon Ken and Osamu running towards the edge. They came… they actually came.  
"Go, Stingmon!" "Deal with him, Strikedramon!" The two Digimon unleashed a torrent of attacks.  
"Hey, Ken! Ichijouji-san! Thanks!" Daisuke waved.

"See, what I tell you?" Mimi said. I couldn't help but nodded.  
 _"_ _Perhaps Daisuke may have been right… that we don't really have a choice about this and that we have to destroy Golemon to stop him. That's why… that's why…!"_ While Stingmon and Strikedramon kept their fight up, Palmon began to groan and wake up.  
"Palmon! Are you okay?" Mimi asked.  
"Mimi… where is he?"  
"Stingmon and Strikedramon are protecting the dam from Golemon."  
"It's not Golemon… That's not Golemon!" Huh?  
"What are you talking about?"  
"It may have the shape of a Digimon, but…"  
"What are you trying to say, Palmon?"  
"When I was looking for herbs… I saw this strange woman. She was human but what she did certainly wasn't something no normal human could do. She took one of the hairs from her head and stabbed it into a Dark Tower. It glowed before it turned into a Golemon! That Golemon! She then ordered it to destroy the dam and then slaughter any survivors!" What!? We were all taken back by this news.

"That solves the mystery!" Takeru exclaimed. "When Thunderballmon appeared, it makes sense that the Dark Tower disappeared."  
"Same thing could probably said about Tortamon then..." Ross believed.  
"So that's a transformed Dark Tower, right?" Iori tried to confirm.  
"Yeah! That's why…" Daisuke tried to say something before I finished his sentence.  
"That's why Osamu-san killed the enemy last week!" I shouted as Stingmon and Strikedramon were being forced back.  
"Stingmon!" "Strikedramon!" The brothers called out for their Digimon.  
 _"_ _I was wrong…"_ I thought to myself. _"I was wrong about Osamu. That's why Ken stands with him, why Daisuke believes in him. He's not like he used to be. He's not the Digimon Kaiser anymore!"_ "Now he's… our partner!" I shouted out loud.

As soon as I said that, a bright light began shooting out of my D-3. At the same time, Hawkmon suddenly recovered and got back up.  
"What's happening, dagyaa?" Armadimon questioned.  
"I don't know…" Hawkmon informed. I continued to look at my D-3.  
 _"_ _Osamu-san… I'm sorry!"  
_ "Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!" Hawkmon evolved… into his Adult-Form! Aquilamon looked like a large version of Hawkmon with two large wings and black horns on his head. Aquilamon took to the skies and I ran over to call out to him.  
"Aquilamon! That's a Dark Tower, not a Digimon!"  
"Really? Then, there's no holding back!" He flew at great speeds towards the dam. I looked back to the Ichijouji brothers and they both had determined looks on their faces before they nodded at me; although once they did that, Ken gave me a wink that said 'Trust me.'

"Blast Laser!" Multiple rings of energy shot out of Aquilamon's mouth and hit Golemon. The smoke cleared and parts of his skin were now gone, revealing a Dark Tower in the shape of Golemon. "Stingmon, Strikedramon, let's go!" Aquilamon ordered.  
"Spiking Finish!" "Strike Fang!" Both charged, with Strikedramon's armor and fangs glowing while his hair burst into white-hot flames, and rammed into Golemon who was now all Dark Tower and cracked across its body.  
"Finish him off, Aquilamon!" Stingmon said. Aquilamon flew down at Mach speed and his horns glowed red.  
"Glide Horn!" He tore right through his chest and left a large hole in the Dark Tower Digimon before it collapsed into dust.  
"They did it!" I cheered.

Osamu stood before us before he bowed as we all regrouped with each other after the fight.  
"I won't make any excuses. I'm really sorry. I'm fully aware that merely saying that can't undo all the suffering or trouble that I've caused… but I just wish to at least show you that I will try to atone for my sins. I hope you'll at least accept that…" We all looked at each other, though some were still not fully ready to accept him into our group… and deep down, I think he believes that too.  
"By the way, who was that woman?" Palmon asked.  
"I don't know either. All I know is that she can somehow create Digimon from Dark Towers… And that they regain their old functions when she's nearby."  
"But, if you knew, why didn't you tell us?" Mimi wondered.  
"Yeah, or at least warn us or something, Ken-kun?" Ross added. Both boys looked ashamed.  
"We thought that since this was our fault, that we should take care of this by ourselves." Monodramon explained. "Ken-chan only got involved when he found out and refused to let us handle this alone."  
"We just thought you didn't need to worry about it all… that we could've handled it… I guess it turns out we were biting off more than we could chew." admitted Wormmon.

"It didn't have to be that way!" Daisuke informed.  
"But… this is all my fault." Osamu said.  
"That's why you said you wouldn't join us?" Osamu said nothing before he bowed his head once more.  
"Well… we'll be going." Both of them turned around and walked away.  
"Hey, Ichijouji!" They kept walking until Ken stopped… as he clearly received the message I sent on his D-Terminal.  
"Huh? Uh… it's for you." He handed it to Osamu. They both turned to look at me after they finished reading it. 'I'll be waiting for the day you join us. Thanks so much for today. – Miyako' They started walking again before it beeped once more. 'Sorry the thought of ever doubting you and breaking our promise ever crossed my mind, Ken. Thank you too. – Miyako ' I could see him blush before they walked away out of our view.

At least we now know what's going on, and Osamu now knows we're willing to help him…

* * *

So the threat is growing once more.

I don't really got anything I want to add with this one so see you all later.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	32. Hearts Beating as One!

Once again... school just catches up with me you know? Sorry for the delay.

Shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **Whiteling** for the reviews. And **God of the Challenge** , I hear you... but sadly with all the changes I already had planned from the start of this... I didn't really want to overburden myself and suddenly make writing this story more of a chore rather fun. Hope you understand.

Okay, let's get on with the story.

* * *

 **Chapter 31: Hearts Beating as One! Jogress Evolution!**

 _Digital World. September 28th, 2002. 1145 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

It's been another week since that fight at the dam and the discovery of that strange lady that can somehow reactivate Dark Towers and turn them into relentless, destructive Digimon. I don't know what's going on, but I get a feeling that it might have something to do with that warning that Wizarmon gave. There were still multiple questions though. The first was she the true enemy that we were warned about? The second was who was she really? And finally… where is she going to turn up next? And with rampaging Digimon?

Our efforts to rebuild were still going well, despite the new threat. Today, we were currently repairing a stone bridge and we actually were almost done with it. At this point, there was still a large chunk in it but we were moving stones and placing the concrete to keep them together in a pretty seamline fashion.  
"How about we take a break?" Daisuke suggested as he wiped the sweat from his brow.  
"Right." Iori agreed followed by the rest of us. We sat on the river ridge edge right by the bridge and began enjoying lunch together.  
"Hmm, delicious!" Hawkmon announced as the Digimon dug into their food. I looked at Miyako and she looked somewhat strange.  
"Miyako-san? Is something wrong?"  
"Well, kind of. Something has mostly been bothering me."  
"What?"  
"That woman Palmon mentioned… who is she?" Believe me, Miyako. We all wish we knew that answer.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Just another day of tearing down my cruel legacy. Ken and I split up so we could destroy more towers faster, and keep more of them from being used by that mysterious woman. Monodramon and I soon came across a rocky area with plenty of Dark Towers around.  
"What are you looking at?" Monodramon asked me.  
"How can this turn into a Digimon…?" I questioned as I walked up to one of them.  
"Do you know something?" I take a few more steps and touch it. It feels like normal stone… but there's just a dark feeling that I know radiates somewhere inside it… like I designed it to.  
"No… I don't." I answer Monodramon's question. "I don't know why… I still know everything from before, my mind is still like it was before… but this is something I don't really understand. I don't get it; I can design and construct massive moving fortresses, Dark Towers to jam Digimon evolution, rings and spirals to enslave, even a monstrous amalgamation. And yet… I can't answer this question."  
"Osamu-chan… do you want to be the Digimon Kaiser again?"  
"No… no… nothing like that." I assured him. "Trust me, that thought will never cross my mind again."

I turn my attention back to the tower.  
"I just can't understand it. My mind is running through it all, all the codes and numbers; but turning a simple Dark Tower into a full-fledged Digimon complete with all the powers of whatever form it takes…" I punch my hand against it; lightly hurting my hand. "The fact that I can't understand my own damn creations and that woman can use them just makes me feel like she's right. I'm not worth anything."  
"Don't say that!" Monodramon angrily shouted. "You're worth everything to many people, to Ken-chan, to your parents, to me! Don't let that woman get to you!" He then got a sad look on his face. "I'm sorry, Osamu-chan, this is my fault. If only I had been stronger, this wouldn't have happened to you…" I suddenly felt awful as he said that and kneeled down to him.  
"It's not your fault, Monodramon. I'm the one to blame."  
"Osamu-chan… let's restore the Digital World together, okay?" I smiled.  
"Thanks, Monodramon." He soon had a determined look on his face.  
"Just watch me bring all those Dark Towers down!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"It's finished!" Iori cheered as the children put the final touches to the bridge.  
"Yep, it's done!" Daisuke breathed out a sigh of relief. "We worked hard, so I'd say it came out well! Right?"  
"Yeah." nodded Takeru.  
"Okay, now that we're done here… Let's go for the next one!" Miyako informed.  
"Right!" The kids shout and followed her off of the bridge.

Unbeknownst to them, the mysterious woman in red was overlooking them as they walked away.  
"Just when the Digital World was on its way to destruction… This is quite annoying." She bemoaned as she filed her nails. "The human children are simply useless, to say nothing of their interference to the plan…" She ran her hand through her hair when she pulled out part of one of her long hairs. "A split end?" She sighed before she angrily glared at the Chosen Children and the bridge they just repaired. "Now I'm mad." She grabbed a long hair of hers and yanked it out. The strand suddenly got perfectly straight before she let it go. It flew out and impaled against a Dark Tower. The tower glowed purple as it began to shrink and reform into a minotaur like Digimon with a large cannon on its left arm. "Go destroy that bridge." She chuckled as the minotaur slid down to the river and began walking towards the base of the bridge.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We were all walking along the path on our way to the next thing we could help fix in the Digital World when I heard a low guttural growl. I turned around and suddenly gasped when I was a minotaur Digimon was walking towards the bridge.  
"That's…" I tried to say something.  
"What, what?" Daisuke squinted as he tried to look ahead.  
"He's heading towards the bridge we just fixed…" Iori observed.  
"Is he going to destroy it…?" Hikari worried. Miyako just groaned.  
"But that's…"  
"Daisuke!" V-mon turned to his partner.  
"Yeah! Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Storm of Friendship, LIGHDRAMON!" Daisuke climbed onto his back before running back down the hill towards the bridge with the rest of us close behind.  
"Patamon! Who is that guy?" I asked.  
"That's Minotarumon! He's an Adult-Level Digimon that's built for a fight. His Darkside Quake will leave his foes greatly raddled."

We watched as Minotarumon got to the bridge and used that arm cannon of his to start drilling a large hole into the base of the bridge.  
"Hey you, what are you doing!?" Daisuke demanded as Lighdramon reached the edge of the ridge. Lighdramon then jumped forward to the attacking Digimon.  
"Lightning Blade!" His ball of electricity shot forward but Minotarumon just deflected it with his cannon before he hit Daisuke and Lighdramon into the river!  
"Daisuke-kun!" I yelled out. "Are you okay?" They got back up in the water.  
"Takeru! He really is trying to destroy the bridge we repaired!" Lighdramon got up once more and attacked but was swatted by that cannon arm again. This time it looked way more painful than before.  
"Why would he do that!?" Miyako yelled in anger in reference to Daisuke's previous statement. "Hawkmon!"  
"Yes! Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON! Stop!" Aquilamon dived down and dug his talons into to Minotarumon's arms. He picked him up for a moment before he accidently dropped him unto the bridge… the part of which we just finished.

Miyako put her hand to her head on the whole fact that we just finished repair the bridge and now would have to work on it once more.. Meanwhile, the rest of us were more concerned about the Digimon when the dust cleared. We could see huge chucks of his skin now missing on his shoulders… and it was pure black underneath.  
"That's…!" Hikari shouted.  
"A Dark Tower!" Iori finished her sentence.  
"It's a Dark Tower too…" I muttered. "Which means that woman is somewhere around." I looked to see any sight of her but I couldn't see.  
"Tailmon!" Hikari turned to her partner.  
"Patamon!" I turned to mine.  
"Digimental Up!" We both shouted.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" "Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"

"Sanctuary Bind!" The two of them did their combined attack that wrapped around Minotarumon before Lighdramon jumped back out of the river and charged once more.  
"Blue Thunder!" The attack hit dead on and the Dark Tower Digimon exploded into data.  
"We did it!" Daisuke jumped and cheered… before realizing the damage to the bridge. We all walked to the hole where Daisuke moaned. "After all that hard work…"  
"I guess we have to fix it again." I admitted.  
"If we all work together, it will be fine." assured Hikari. "We can still fix it."  
"Armadimon and I are still up for the challenge." Iori informed.  
"Me too! We've got to try, right?" Miyako added.

"If we work together, huh…" Daisuke sighed. "Hey, let's contact Ken and get him and his brother to help us out."  
"Eh?" We all said. If Ken wanted to give a hand, that was fine. It's just… I think we're all still not truly willing to welcome Osamu with open arms per se.  
"I'm sure Ichijouji-san's willing to help if we ask."  
"Well… I'm not sure about that." Iori muttered.  
"Iori… you don't agree with me, do you?"  
"No. I don't think the way you do, Daisuke-san."  
"Look, it's not like we don't want him to help… it's just…" Miyako tried to say.  
"We know he's not the Kaiser no more; but we still don't feel comfortable being around him for the time being, you know?" I gave out our collective reasoning.

Daisuke just stared at the ground.  
"You know, back then I heard it…"  
"Heard what?" asked Iori.  
"That time, when Ichijouji's Crest of Compassion turned into a golden Digimental… I didn't really understand what it was saying at the time, but… It seemed like it was asking for something. I don't know how to put into words, but… How to say it… I just felt like I could trust that Crest. I did actually hear it say that I should put my trust into Ken… but also into his brother. I know it sounds kinda crazy, but… I think that Crest is Ichijouji's heart itself."  
"In other words, you understand Ichijouji-san's heart?" Hikari questioned.  
"Well, when you put it that way… I kinda don't know… considering they're brothers, maybe it was more of Ken's heart I was reading. After all, he said the thing talked to him to."  
"You may be able to understand, but I still don't really get it…" I confessed.  
"Hey, can't we speak in simpler terms?" complained Miyako. "Crests, hearts… why do we need to make things so complicated?" I chuckled. Sadly Miyako, that's par for the course with us.

Our conversation was interrupted by a beep on Iori's D-Terminal.  
"Message from Koushiro-san. 'Something strange is happening nearby! Please go check it out! The dark power seems to be growing…'"  
"Dark power growing?" Daisuke questioned.  
"It says that it's the Kaiser's base… Koushiro-san thinks somethings wrong with it. He says that Ross-san is already there and waiting for us."  
"Alright then, let's not keep him waiting! Let's check it out!"

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

I walked over to Strikedramon as he toppled the last Dark Tower in the area.  
"Thanks… you must be tired." I said.  
"No, I can keep going." He insisted. As much as I knew he could, I thought now would be a good stopping point for us.  
"But there's always tomorrow. I think we can call it a day." Monodramon and I soon were walking back to the gate to head home. I wonder how Ken and Wormmon did today? I guess we'll find out when we meet with them back home. "Are you alright?"  
"I'm fine, Osamu-chan. You worry too much."  
"I wish there was more I could do."  
"I can evolve because you're here. Don't worry about it!" I smiled.  
"Come on, let's get home and eat lots of snacks!"  
"Yeah!"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We rode our Digimon all the way to the ruins of the base before we soon got a good glimpse at it. It looked okay; of course, that's probably because something bad is going to happen. We all ran up to Ross's location who was standing on a dune with Guilmon.  
"This is the problematic area." Miyako looked at her D-Terminal.  
"Nice of you to join me." Ross said before he pulled out his D-Terminal. "Okay, Koushiro-kun, they're here, tell them the problem."  
"You sure you can't go there too?" We heard Takeo's voice crackle over the D-Terminal.  
"Do you know exactly what's this I'm seeing?" Koushiro answered.  
"Uh, no, not really."  
"Okay, listen. The negative energy is concentrating there. If it continues like this, an explosion with a radius of dozens of kilometers will occur!"  
"An explosion!?" I exclaimed.

"We have to stop it somehow!" Koushiro informed.  
"Stop it… how?" Iori questioned.  
"Can't we just let it blow? It's in the middle of the desert with nothing around it." Ross wondered.  
"No, an explosion of that size… we both know how connected the Digital World is connected to our world. If it goes, it may rip a hole between worlds; it might actually destroy a major city in our world if we allow it!" insisted Koushiro. Okay, so it can't blow. But what is causing the problem… and what can we do? It suddenly hit me like a freight train.  
"It must be because the Crest of Compassion is missing." I theorized. "So, if we can bring it back, I'm sure we can stop it."  
"But that's…" Iori worried.  
"Daisuke, what are you doing?" Miyako asked me as I pulled out my D-Terminal.  
"I'm calling him. I'll have Ichijouji-san bring us the Crest of Compassion."

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 28th, 2002. 1311 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Mom was out so Osamu and I were just enjoying lunch by ourselves after we returned home.  
"Can you pass that?" Monodramon asked me.  
"Sure." I handed him the bread before both Digimon had apprehensive looks on their faces. "What's wrong?" We both turned around to look at Osamu's computer… and were greeted by the last face we wanted to see.  
"Hello. How have you been?" The woman sounded cordial but it was clear it was more of an insult to us.  
"You!" Osamu quickly got up from his chair.  
"Osamu-chan, don't bother with her!" Wormmon told him which Monodramon nodding in agreement.  
"Oh? I'm not welcome?" She tried to feign innocence. "Excuse me." She started to walk away.  
"Wait!" Osamu exclaimed. She slowly turned around.  
"Are you talking to me, by any chance?"

"Who are you? What do you know about me?" Osamu walked up to the screen. She sighed.  
"You sure like to ask things, don't you?"  
"Why did you appear? What do you plan to do with the Digital World?" Osamu was looking angrier and angrier with each passing moment. It was almost if the Kaiser was coming out again.  
"What? Why do you care? It's none of your business anymore, is it?"  
"That's where you're wrong, you witch!" I shouted.  
"Hmm… temper, temper… I can clearly see anger runs in this family." She taunted. Now I was getting mad.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We stood by after we sent the message before a large explosion rocked the area and tore a hole through the base.  
"That was…" Hikari shouted.  
"Just a precursor of the big explosion." Takeru informed. "We don't have much time!"  
"Dammit! Why aren't they responding!?" I questioned. What the hell is the hold up, Ken?!

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"How can you say it's none of my business?" Osamu questioned the woman. "I… I…" His anger was fading and being replaced by feelings of sadness and regret. "Why…? Why?"  
"Are you trying to say 'Why did I become the Digimon Kaiser'?" She chuckled. "I can easily predict what you want to know." As she said that, the phone next to Monodramon began to rang.  
"Uh, guys? Phone!" Both boys ignored it as they focused more on the woman.  
"If you really want to know…" Both brothers growled. "I suppose I could tell you… You want to know?"  
"I want to know." Osamu said.  
"Then turn around three times and bark!"  
"What!?" Osamu roared with anger.  
"You really just want to make us mad, don't you?" Ken questioned which made the woman laugh.  
"Of course I do, I thought you two were supposed to be smart." She then chuckled a second later. "You idiot." That was more directed to Osamu. "It could have been anyone, just as long as the Dark Towers were built. It's just that with you, there was an opportunity to exploit. You were, after all, so much easier to influence than say those other Chosen Children… but even they aren't invincible to influence; they could have easily been good Kaisers or Kaiserins."  
"So you used me?"

Monodramon and Wormmon kept looking at the phone before Monodramon finally decided to answer.  
"Hello, Ichijouji Osamu and Ken are unable to answer your call at the moment. Please call back another time."  
"Hello? Is this a voice message?" Koushiro questioned.  
"It's not a voice message, it's a Digimon message."  
"Wait, am I speaking to Monodramon? Is Wormmon there?"  
"Yes, this is Monodramon. And Wormmon is here too, but Osamu-chan and Ken-chan is…"  
"Hand the phone to Wormmon!" He handed it over to Wormmon.  
"Hello?"  
"Wormmon! This is Koushiro! There's an emergency right now and I need to speak with Ken-kun and Ichijouji-san!"

"Humans with weaknesses are easy to manipulate." The woman continued with her insulting conversation. "You're just an example."  
"Why? Why did it have to be me?" Osamu questioned again.  
"Didn't I just tell you? It could have been anyone. Hell, your brother could've have easily just have been a good Kaiser."  
"That's a lie!" Osamu defended.  
"Really?" She laughed again. "You two still haven't figured it out, have you?"  
"What do you mean?" Ken asked.  
"You… haven't you ever stopped to think why you became a genius in your own right? How impossible the odds had been for two outstandingly brilliant prodigies to be in the same home?" Ken's angry look was suddenly replaced with a fearful look. "It's no coincidence… not unlike your brother being the Kaiser. Now that was just a coincidence."  
"I'm not convinced!" Osamu shouted again. "That answer doesn't convince me!"  
"What a bunch of nagging children… Stop or you're going to make me angry."

"Ken-chan!" "Osamu-chan!" Both Digimon called out for their partners. "Koushiro is on the phone!" Wormmon informed. Both boys turned their heads back to their Digimon. "He says the Digital World is in danger and they need you help!" Both of them gasped before they turned back to the screen.  
"You… what did you do?" Ken demanded.  
"What?" The woman once again pretended to be innocent to things. Both brothers turned to the phone and answered it.  
"Ken-kun? Ichijouji-san? Daisuke-kun mailed you the details." Koushiro explained. "You guys need to come to the Digital World right now. And bring your Crest of Compassion with you! Please, hurry!" Both boys glared at the screen.  
"What's with that look?" The woman gave a sinister smile.  
"You were just trying to hold us up." Osamu figured it out. She laughed once again as the jig was up but she accomplished what she wanted.  
"That's why I say you little boys are too soft." Osamu gripped the receiver so hard, his knuckles were turning white.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

The area rocked once more as yet another explosion occurred in the base.  
"Again…" Iori muttered. "It's only a matter of time before the big explosion." A short second later, there was another one that we had to shield ourselves from.  
"Again!?" Hikari questioned.  
"Ichijouji-san isn't here yet!?" Miyako exclaimed.  
"He's coming! I'm sure he is!" I insisted.  
"I don't know about that…" An unfamiliar voice said. We all turned out towards a strange woman staring at us.  
"I can take a wild guess that's the witch Palmon saw." informed Ross.  
"I don't want any kiddies messing with my explosions!" She soon grabbed her hair and pulled out several of them before they went abnormally straight and flew out… towards the Dark Towers in the area.

We all watched as over twenty towers flew up into the air in two directions before the meshed together and created these two large grey beetles that looked similar to Kuwagamon.  
"The Dark Towers…!" Hikari shouted.  
"They turned into Digimon!" exclaimed Miyako.  
"So this is how it works…" Iori said in a mix of fear and awe.  
"Guys, Okuwamon is not something to be taken lightly! They're Perfect-Level Digimon with a devastating Scissor Arms Omega which can cut through even the hardest of diamonds!" Guilmon warned us.  
"Wait… Perfect-Level…" Takeru sounded really worried. The two of them landed in front of us and our Digimon got to evolving.

"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" "Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!" "Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!" Our Digimon jumped forward and kept between the two attacking bugs.  
"X Laser!" "Blast Laser!" Their attacks hit the nearest one while Ankylomon rolled into a ball and struck the Okuwamon in the chest but was quickly slapped away while not looking even remotely hurt.  
"Ankylomon!" Iori ran forward but Ross grabbed him before he accidently ran into harm's way.  
"If we could evolve to Perfect-Level…" Tailmon growled in frustration.  
"We could…!" Patamon tried to say something else before Takeru interrupted him.  
"We have no choice. We'll have to do what we can!"  
"Guilmon…" Ross said.  
"We'll damn well try! Guilmon, evolve! GROWMON!"  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"  
"Digimental Up!" Hikari shouted.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"

However, just because our Digimon evolved… they were unable to hold back the two bugs. Aquilamon was stuck and soon reverted back to his Child-Level.  
"Hawkmon!" Miyako cried out.  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" Angemon's attack didn't do anything to the Okuwamon and he suffered the same fate.  
"Patamon!" Takeru ran for his partner.  
"Angemon's attack is only effective against dark types!" Hikari informed. Well, it's a Dark Tower Digimon, shouldn't that count? I turned my attention back to XV-mon and Growmon who really looked like they were the only ones still holding out now.  
"Rosetta…" That second Okuwamon struck Nefertimon and she reverted back to Tailmon.  
"Tailmon!" Hikari shouted. Now it was down to me and Ross to take these things down. Damn it all, where the hell is Ken and Osamu!?

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Ken and I were running to the remains of the Kaiser's base as fast as we could; hopeful to reach it before it would blow.  
"I was there…" I said.  
"That's over with!" Monodramon tried to tell me.  
"I thought I was the greatest… I let it get to my head… Yes, I did it. I let it overtake me and make me something I shouldn't be! That woman just used me! She took my ignorance and narcissism and molded me into the perfect pawn! That's why… I'll be the one who puts an end to this!" We ran until we finally were at the dune overlooking the others where it was clear they were in trouble.  
"Osamu-chan!" "Ken-chan!" Our Digimon expressed their readiness.  
"Monodramon, evolve!" "Wormmon, evolve!"  
"Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" Both our Digimon soon charged forward to assist.

"Spiking Finish!" "Strike Claw!" Stingmon went after the Digimon that was trying to deal with Motomiya's Digimon while Strikedramon dealt with the one bearing down on Growmon. Both dealt with the attacks, thought the Digimon attacking didn't look any worse for wear.  
"Sorry we're late!" I apologized as we ran up to the others.  
"I knew you'd come!" Motomiya gave a smile. "And the Crest?" I pulled it out.  
"Alright, good work. Now, come on, we've got to hurry!" Ross tried to reach for it before I pulled it away.  
"You should all get away from here." I told them.  
"What!?" Ken questioned as an explosion rocked the area; he now suddenly realized what I actually had planned.  
"There's no time. We'll take care of this!"  
"Everyone, get out of here!" Strikedramon ordered.

One of that bug's claws was about to grab Strikedramon in the back before Growmon knocked it away.  
"Listen, if we're running away, you'll come with us!" He said.  
"I can't do that!" Strikedramon admitted.  
"What are on Earth are you talking about, Osamu? What do you intend to do!?" Ross demanded an answer.  
"I won't let people suffer anymore because of what I did… no more!"  
"What?"  
"Why did I have to become the Digimon Kaiser?" I was beginning to break down.  
"I wasn't able to stop Osamu-chan…" Strikedramon expressed his regret.  
"I want to restore the Digital World with my own hands. But things just keep getting worse… I can't stand it! I don't want any more destruction in this world…"  
"If there's any way I can atone for the sins I've committed…"  
"It doesn't matter what happens to me!" I declared. "Right now, I have to stop the reactor!"

"You idiot!" I suddenly felt a swift punch into my jaw which knocked me onto the ground. "How can you say that!?" Ross roared.  
"Don't be stupid!" Growmon shouted at Strikedramon.  
"Think for a moment, you dumbass! Think of those you'd leave behind if you stupidly get yourself killed! Ken-kun went through so much to bring you back only for you to sacrifice yourself in some grand form of redemption!? I ain't letting you go and having your blood on my hands because I couldn't stop you. I'd never forgive myself! So, I'm not letting you go!"

"Onii-san…" Ken muttered.  
"This is partially your fault too!" Daisuke shouted.  
"What?"  
"You allowed him to do all this; you encourage his whole lone wolf routine. We're a team, Ken, so what changed?"  
"He's my brother!"  
"I know that, but why did you just come clean in the first place? We probably could've avoided all this!"  
"Daisuke… I'm sorry… it's just…"  
"Look, I understand why, but we would've helped you and Osamu-san from the start if you just came to us!" Ken was looking disappointed.  
"We took care of Chimairamon and Chocomon together, Stingmon. Why did it have to change?" XV-mon questioned which also made Stingmon guilty.

"You think you can let your partner die like that?" Growmon continued to argue with Strikedramon.  
"You might be okay with being a martyr, but I'm not and so are the rest of us!" Ross kept chewing me out.  
"McGlathery-kun…"  
"For God's sake, man, live!"  
"It's your duty as a partner to live together, no matter what!" Growmon explained. "If you want to atone for your sins, you have to keep living!"  
"You're right…" Strikedramon conceded. "I can't do that unless I live."

"Ken, you're my best friend and I trust you with my life, so why don't you trust me!?" Daisuke shouted once more.  
"I do trust you, Daisuke! And I was wrong to not come clean sooner! I'm sorry!" Ken confessed.  
"If you did now, you won't be able to accomplish anything… I don't want that!" Ross gave one more shout.  
"I don't want it either…" I admitted. "There are still many things I must do. I can't die here. Besides… I don't want to make my family sad anymore…"

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

As Osamu said that, I felt some sort of feeling come over me before the four us of had a bright flash come from our pockets where we were keeping our D-3s. All four of our Digimon soon began glowing after that. I soon began hearing the sound of a heart beating… that isn't mine… that's… Osamu's… The next thing that happened was truly out of this world.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!"

Wow… didn't know they had it in them. Paildramon was a large bipedal dragon/insect with two big claws, two pairs of wings and two large cannons strapped to the sides of his waist. MechaRaptormon was quite intimidating as he was almost double the height of Paildramon. He was a large bipedal reddish purple lizard with a steel horn and grey hair, a bandolier around his chest, one arm missing replaced with a metallic one that had a large cannon. He also had two giant organic wings and everything below his waist was completely mechanized in pure steel that still looked reptilian in shape. Both Digimon stared down the two Okuwamon with a fire in their eyes.  
"They combined…" Takeru muttered.  
"Jogress Evolution?" Miyako questioned.

I hate to admit it; but I actually pity those bugs now, because our new Digimon are going to tear them apart…

* * *

Well, I don't really have much to say about what just happened... It's my first true OC Digimon, that had a bit of help from **MadDog**.

Also... what does that woman know about Ken that the brothers don't know?

Anyways, as always, take care and see you next time.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	33. Invincible Combinations!

Another Chapter! The next few should be coming out sooner thanks to Spring Break coming up soon.

Shoutout to the reviews left by **MadDogLucario96** , **Foggsaurus8** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **Whiteling**. Nice you guys like MechaRaptormon. I don't know if I'll get Jubia on DA to do a drawing though...

Anyways, let's keep going with this gravy train!

* * *

 **Chapter 32: Invincible Combinations! Paildramon and MechaRaptormon!**

 _Digital World. September 28th, 2002. 1345 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

One moment it looked like we were going to be torn to shreds by Perfect-Level Dark Tower bugs that had us completely outmatched and outgunned. The next, four of our Digimon combine into two Digimon that look more than prepared to take on and destroy those two attacking Okuwamon. I have always said there has got to be some divine influence to everything that happens to us in these nail-biting moments.  
"Paildramon?" Daisuke and Ken questioned at the same time.  
"MechaRaptormon?" Osamu and I did the same as them. Both of them growled as they got into fighting position while hovering in the air. It's clear that woman did not like this turn of events.  
"Okuwamon, get rid of them both." She ordered her two bugs. Both of them growled in response and turned each of their attention to one of our combined Digimon.

Both Paildramon and MechaRaptormon didn't even give them a chance to move. Paildramon used his quick speed to quickly zoom right up to the face of the Okuwamon he was facing and gave a swift kick into the jaw that completely knocked the bug back into a large hole in the sand. MechaRaptormon decided to take a different approach with his Okuwamon and charged ahead before tackling the bug and give it a swift punch in the stomach with his arm cannon which took the wind from the Dark Tower Digimon.  
"It's tough." Paildramon said. His voice sounded like XV-mon and Stingmon speaking in perfect synchronization.  
"It is a Perfect-Level for a reason." MechaRaptormon informed. His voice was Growmon and Strikedramon in sync. The Okuwamon that was in the ground got back out of the hole it was in and flew back to Paildramon in an attempt to try to slice him with its pincers. Paildramon grabbed them and spun around to send the bug flying away from the area. The Okuwamon MechaRaptormon pinned tried to cut his head off but only wrapped its pincers around the metal arm. "Yeah, good luck cutting through that."

With the distance gained, Paildramon held out his fingers which shot out on long cables and wrapped around Okuwamon's legs before he threw it into the sand once more. MechaRaptormon jumped up in the air and his mechanical legs crushed his Okuwamon into the ground.  
"Amazing, dagyaa." Armadimon looked on in awe with the rest of us.  
"They're fighting the Perfect-Level Okuwamon on even terms." Hawkmon observed.  
"If only we could evolve to Perfect like before…" Patamon expressed some slight envy. Well, don't think we need to worry about that right now.  
"Paildramon and MechaRaptormon will win for sure." believed Tailmon.  
"But they didn't have to combine… especially Growmon and Ichijouji Osamu's Digimon…"

The Okuwamon that faced Paildramon jumped up once more but he dodged it and kicked the bug right in the back knocking him towards the sand again.  
"It's fast!" He noticed.  
"Isn't that awesome?" Daisuke cheered.  
"I have to admit… I fully agree with you on that." Ken nodded.  
"Our new Digimon rules!" The Okuwamon that dueled MechaRaptormon got up again, but MechaRaptormon just responded by smashing his arm cannon in its face.  
"Shoot, what do you think that cannon is? A one-twenty millimeter? He's got a Leopard II or an Abrams on his freaking arm!" I turn and say to Osamu.  
"If you say so…"  
"Say so? That's our Digimon partner!" I give him a pat on the back.  
"Is it…?"

Both Okuwamon keep up the fight but our two combined Digimon are keeping their distance and not letting them even get a chance to hit them. Paildramon gives a right hook to his opponent's jaw while MechaRaptormon's cannon arm swipes at a leg.  
"Right, there! That's it!" Daisuke pumps his arms.  
"He's certainly able to take him on now." Ken notices as Paildramon throws a wave of punches.  
"Yeah, finish him off!"  
"Our Digimon partner?" Osamu questions to me as MechaRaptormon continues to utterly wail on his bug.  
"Yeah… if that ain't a sign… I don't know what is." I tell him.  
"Hurry, use the Crest of Compassion!" MechaRaptormon advised us.  
"Right…" Both Osamu and I nod. We start running for the base, while Daisuke and Ken follow close behind.  
"We're going too!" Takeru shouted.  
"We can still make it!" Hikari said and the rest of them followed us.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Can't let you do that." The woman growled. "Okuwamon! Go after the children." She ordered. The bugs tried to follow their orders but the two combined Digimon stood in their way.  
"You want to get to them? Over my dead body! Molten Breath!" MechaRaptormon shouted as he opened his mouth and pure white lava shot out, forcing the Okuwamon to jump back.  
"I won't let you go any further!" Paildramon's fingers shot forward again and wrapped around the bug, keeping him from pursuing.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

We followed Ross and Osamu inside through a hole in the base before taking a quick notice of the place… it was completely wrecked beyond belief. Debris was all along our path and it looked like we wouldn't get deeper into the base this way.  
"We can't go any further!" As soon as Takeru said that, Ross and Osamu ran in perfect sync and began to climb through the debris until they got to the hole at the other end of the room. Soon, Daisuke and I did the same, probably to the wonderment of the others.  
"They kinda make a perfect pair, don't you think?" Miyako said.  
"Which ones are you talking about?" Iori quickly asked which gave me a bit of a smirk. We keep running through the base while alarm bells blare.  
"Shit, we're running out of time!" cursed Ross.

After a bit more running, we soon came across this large generator thing that had a green aura to it. We soon stopped near it. We looked up and saw the symbol of the Crest of Compassion as well as a little hole beneath it that looked like the Crest could fit in there.  
"Looks like I was right… Ichijouji-san… the Crest." Daisuke motioned him. Osamu soon began climbing up the generator. He soon got up to the top and pulled out his Crest before he placed it into the slot. It was a perfect fit. The green aura soon began dying down, the power was shutting down, the lights went out and the alarm stopped blaring. "Alright!"  
"Great call there, Daisuke-kun." Ross complimented.  
"I think we did it." I guessed.  
"You made it!" Hikari declared as the rest of the group caught up with us. We all nodded.

Iori's D-Terminal soon beeped, indicating he got mail.  
"It's from Koushiro-san." He informed. "The distortion is gone." We all breathed a sigh of relief.  
"Yay! It should be fine now, right?" Miyako loudly stated.  
"I was a little scared because I thought it would explode at any moment." admitted Patamon.  
"Me too." Takeru looked down at him.  
"Well, thanks to you Osamu, we're saved." Ross held out his hand. Osamu actual had a small smile on his face and reached out to shake too… before a loud explosion rocked the whole place again.

"What the!?" Osamu cried as more explosions began to erupt around us. One rocked so hard that his Crest was blown out of the generator and landed in front of him. We quickly moved before some rubble landed on us and we all took cover.  
"No! Wasn't the Crest of Compassion put back!?" Miyako angrily yelled.  
"Guess it didn't work considering Onii-san is holding it again!" I told her. Another beep on Iori's D-Terminal.  
"Message from Koushiro again. 'We have a problem. The distortion is back.' That's impossible!"  
"I thought we'd stop the explosion by bringing Ichijouji-san's Crest back!" Daisuke explained.  
"My Crest didn't do anything…" Osamu sounded defeated. "It's worthless."  
"No." Iori spoke up. "Thanks to the Crest of Compassion, the reactor's explosion was avoided." We all turn to him. "I'm just stating the facts. That's what Koushiro-san's computer clearly showed." More explosions began ringing out.

"Then, what about this one?" Hikari asked.  
"There has to be something else… Some other reason!" Miyako believed.  
"Too bad…" That woman's voice rang out from a still working screen. We turned to it.  
"Are you the one who did this?" Hikari asked as she walked forward.  
"Oh, don't blame me." She waved her hand. "It just shows that little Crest is useless. The dark power has simply grown."  
"What!?" Daisuke exclaimed.  
"Nobody can stop it anymore." She chuckled. "How ironic!" She laughed once more before a lead pipe crashed through the screen. We turned to see Ross had thrown it.  
"Carmen Sandiego wannabe…" He growled. Osamu also growled himself before it looked like he came to some sort of realization.  
"That's…" He turned his head. "Of course. These pipes…" He soon ran a different direction.  
"Hey! Where are you going, Onii-san?" I shouted.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"These kids don't know when to quit." The woman observed. "Go ahead and blow yourselves up along with that broken toy." She turned her head around. "Now, all that's left is finishing you two off." Paildramon and MechaRaptormon were slowly beginning to be pushed back by the two Okuwamon who were fighting harder than before.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We followed Osamu down this long tunnel that seemed to get darker and smaller the further we went.  
"What's over there?" I asked about what was ahead as the base rumbled from another explosion.  
"I think energy is transferred through those pipes." Osamu explained. "So, if we follow them, we should be able to stop the reactor."  
"I'm getting a bad feeling…" Tailmon was on edge.  
"I'm sure I've felt it before." Patamon said. We then walked forward once more. In front of us, some electricity crackled before an explosion followed and caused a cave-in in front of us. The path was now blocked by all sorts of wires and debris.  
"It's blocked!" Hikari stated.  
"Now what!?" groaned Miyako. Armadimon jumped forward.  
"Leave it to me, dagyaa!" He soon rolled himself into a ball. "Rolling Stone!" He shot forward and tore through the rubble that blocked the way.  
"Feather Slash!" Hawkmon took the feather on his head and threw it forward which cut away all the pipes and wires before it returned to him. "Now we can pass through."

We proceeded ahead before we finally came to a large chamber with a black spire in the middle and it was glowing a real ominous blue-purple color.  
"That's it!" Osamu pointed. A wave of chills came over my body.  
"D-don't you get the creeps?" I asked the others.  
"This feeling…" Takeru muttered.  
"I remember! It's like when we were close to that whirlpool!" Patamon said.  
"I know it too. It's like that world devoid of light I was taken to." Hikari recalled.  
"That means… That opening is connected to the Dark World." Osamu said mostly to himself. He looked towards this thing that came off the spire and a black cloud was coming out of it. "The dark energy flows through that opening and controls this base." Two more explosions rang out.

We took this as a cue that things were about to go up in flames so we slid down towards the base of the spire. That protrusion had a small window that soon glowed white.  
"There's no time! If we don't do something now, it will explode!" Iori yelled.  
"What do we do, Osamu?" Ross asked for his opinion.  
"We have to stop the flow of dark energy! I'm sure there's a way to stop it somewhere!" We were soon blown back by an explosion that detonated in front of us.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At the same time, both combined Digimon were keeping up with their fight with the two Dark Tower bugs.  
"Daisuke and the others are still in there?" Paildramon questioned as he tried to hold back his Okuwamon.  
"Osamu-chan and the rest are in danger!" MechaRaptormon yelled. "Time to end this distraction." He shoved his cannon arm down the Okuwamon's throat. "Howitzer Blast!" One powerful shot rang out and blew the bug's head clean off before the rest of him exploded. Paildramon aimed his cannons at his attacker's face.  
"Desperado Blaster!" Multiple bolts of energy shot forward and tore the bug to shreds leaving nothing yet as another explosion from the base ran out.  
"Daisuke! Ken-chan!" "Ross! Osamu-chan!" Both Digimon turned and flew as fast as they could to the base.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

The dust cleared and it looked like we were all still alive, if a bit roughed up.  
"You all okay?" Motomiya checked.  
"We are, but…" Inoue pointed up to the spire. "Look at that!" The spire began to glow a deathly white and that window was now beginning to ooze some sort of cold liquid. This could only mean one thing.  
"We… we can't do anything…" I reluctantly admitted. As if on cue, the walls rumbled and Paildramon and MechaRaptormon tore through.  
"Desperado Blaster!" "Howitzer Blast!" They fired at the protrusion and blew it up… which caused everything to shut down.  
"Paildramon!" "MechaRaptormon!" The four of us called out for our Digimon. We calmed down before Hida got another message again.  
"'The distortion is fixed. Everything should be okay now.'" He read. I get the feeling that what we just did had to has to have made that woman mad.

We stood out along the dunes when we saw the entire base explode into rubble thanks to our Digimon.  
"Destroy it, please… don't leave a trace." I said. After a bit, these four small Digimon hopped forward. One was Ketomon but the others I didn't really recognize, if I had to guess, these were the Baby-Forms of Guilmon, Wormmon, and V-mon. It was confirmed when they all went up to their respective partners.  
"Good work… er… guess you aren't Guilmon right now, eh?" Ross picked up his partner.  
"I believe that's Jyarimon, Chicomon, and Leafmon." Hawkmon informed. Jyarimon hopped out of Ross's arms and jumped over to Ketomon where they looked like they were being friendly with each other while Chicomon and Leafmon were essentially congratulating each other.

"Well, looks like we helped do it, Osamu." Ross held his hand out to me. I was about to shake but decided not to. "What's wrong?"  
"Why did our Digimon combine… why?" I understand more why Motomiya and Ken's did; those two are truly close friends, but Ross and me?  
"What are you talking about? The answer is because we're partners."  
"Partners?"  
"Yeah, didn't you feel it?"  
"When our Digimon combined, our thoughts and feelings flowed through each of our bodies." Daisuke quickly spoke up to where Ross pointed at him and nodded.  
"With Daisuke and me…" Ken said. "It felt as if our hearts were beating as one… it was an amazing experience of unity if I may say so."  
"What they said." Ross concluded. "So that's why I knew we were partners… plus MechaRaptormon so you really can't deny anything less at that point."

I turned and looked away from him.  
"I'm sorry… I know what you're trying to say, but I'm not qualified to be your partner yet."  
"'Qualified?' What the hell do you mean by that? None of were qualified to be Chosen Children yet here we are. What exactly more do you need to convince you that you're one of us?"  
"I'm sorry…" I picked up Ketomon. "Can you give me some time to thing?"  
"Sure… just don't take too long okay? I don't think that woman is going to give up anytime soon." Agreed. I started to walk away.  
"I'll meet with you in a sec, Onii-san." Ken probably wanted to say a few more things to his friends as I walked out of hearing distance of them.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"I don't get it…" Daisuke muttered.  
"You can't be so straightforward, Daisuke-kun." Hikari told him.  
"Yeah, he wants some time to himself, so you should give it to him." I said.  
"But we just all fought together!" He insisted.  
"Maybe he was all wrapped up while fighting, but when it was over, he was all 'What's going on here!?' and panicked." Miyako gave a theory.  
"Even I have no idea what happened." Iori pointed out.  
"Look, Onii-san… today was a turning point okay, but he just needs to come to terms with a few more things, you know." Ken defended. "Look, just wait and see with him okay? In the meantime, I'm sorry I kept you guys in the dark, but I promise things will go back to the way thing were before, alright?"  
"Okay… just… you thought you were doing things you thought were best." Daisuke forgave before he turned back to Osamu while the others started to walk back home. "Just like Ichijouji-san is doing his best, his own way." Daisuke believed before he walked off too.

"I just hope that effort isn't just to satisfy himself." Takeru said as him, myself and Ken were staying put for the moment.  
"Don't worry, Takeru-kun… he isn't… not anymore." Ken told him.  
"You sure about that?"  
"Yes, I am."  
"How?"  
"Let me put it this way… back home, the past few weeks; it's like we never had a falling out." Ken ran after Osamu. I put my arm on Takeru's shoulder.  
"Everyone does deserve a second chance…"  
"You really believe so, Ross-san?"  
"I go to church, they spout that all the time. But I do believe so… guess we'll find out sooner or later then…" I whispered to myself.

We got back to Earth where Miyako called up Koushiro who was actually at his house. Guess Takeo saw the disturbance and went over to his place.  
"What did Koushiro-san say?" Takeru asked.  
"Well, he said there's something he wants to tell us about Jogress Evolution, and asked us to go to his place tomorrow."  
"Tell us what?" wondered Iori.  
"No… idea… I didn't really ask for details."  
"What do you think, Daisuke-san?"  
"No idea."  
"Could it be…" Hikari muttered and stopped which caused Takeru and me to look at her.  
"Do you three know something?" Iori inquired us.

Nothing more was said as Chicomon seemed to be getting hungry as he was trying to get a granola bar that Daisuke was eating.  
"He's got the right idea. I'm starving!" Miyako said.  
"It's late, so we'll talk about it tomorrow." Takeru informed.  
"But it's bothering me!" Iori insisted.  
"Eh, I'm afraid you'll have to do it without me. I've got somethings to handle." I told them. "Today has been… hectic, but it's just a normal day at the office, huh?" I chuckle.  
"Iori, we should be back home before dinner, dagyaa!" Upamon shouted.  
"You're right." The young man nodded. "See you tomorrow at Koushiro-san's!"  
"Bye!" We all parted our various ways.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"I know I felt it. I know that Ross-san felt it, Ken felt it, and I know Ichijouji-san felt it too. He's partners with Ross-san." Daisuke said as he lay in his bed. He turned over to Chicomon. "I'm sure you felt it with Wormmon." The little baby nodded before bouncing up and down. "I can't really understand what you're saying right now, but feel free to tell me in the morning okay? Night."  
"I knew me and Daisuke had gotten closer as friends… but I never expected being connected to him like that, you know, Leafmon?" Ken turned over in his bed. "And then of course there's Onii-san… I wish I could truly know what was going through his head right now."  
"Osamu and I are connected… can't believe that's the truth but it is." Ross sighed. "I wonder what it felt like for you, Jyarimon."  
"Still away, Ross? Go to sleep." Taichi groaned as he turned over. Ross followed suit.  
"I thought I only had you and Ken…" Osamu wonders. "And then you combine with McGlathery's Digimon…" Ketomon gave him a smile. "I guessing you felt happy then." The little Digimon nodded. "Do you really think we'd still be accepted, despite all the horrible things I've done?" He sighed before he closed his eyes.

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. September 29th, 2002. 1043 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Crap! I'm late! I know it! I run with Chibimon to Koushiro's apartment. As soon as I see it, I see everyone waiting.  
"Hey there!" I yell out.  
"You're late, Daisuke-san!" Iori shouted at me.  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"  
"Oh, you're Chibimon again." Tailmon noticed.  
"A good night's sleep and I'm back!" He swung from my arms.  
"Yeah, you're such a busy guy!" I held him up. The others laughed.  
"Let's hurry to Koushiro-san's home!" Iori ran in.

"What does 'Jogress' mean?" Koushiro said as we sat in his room. "I looked it up, but I couldn't find any meaning. So, I came up with my own thought." He turned to his computer and the words 'joint' and 'progress'. "'Joint' means combining. And 'progress' means evolving. I think the word is made by combining part of these two words."  
"Koushiro-han was up very late trying to figure that out." Tentomon informed as he sat on the bed, much to Koushiro's embarrassment.  
"Is this what you wanted to tell us about Jogress?" Iori questioned.  
"No… Actually, there's something we haven't told you guys yet."  
"Haven't told us?" I looked at him funny. Were we being kept in the dark about something?  
"Maybe we should have told you earlier."  
"What is it? Please, stop stalling and tell us." Iori was eager to know.

"Alright… Two Digimon combining… it's actually happened once before. WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon combined on the internet to defeat Diablomon during the whole Peacekeeper Incident."  
"I know about that!" Miyako's eyes widened.  
"This happened a while after that… I believe May 22nd, 2000. We were all called by Gennai-san and went back to the Digital World. It was nice seeing our partners in the flesh again, but there was more to this. We had defeated Apoclymon so we thought the distortion of the Digital World was gone. But it wasn't. In order to fully fix the distortion, we had to release the force that protects the Digital World, which had been trapped by the power of darkness."  
"The force that protects the Digital World?" Iori questioned once more.  
"Yeah. We don't know what it is, but…" Hikari spoke up. "If that force is weakened, the power of darkness in the Digital World increases.

"The power of our Crests was needed to prevent that." Koushiro continued. "With the power of Crests, the Digital World's distortion was fixed. The power of the nine Crests restored the Digital World. That's the true reason why we were chosen. However, since we used the Crests' power to restore the Digital World, Tentomon, Agumon and all of our Digimon partners lost the ability to evolve to Perfect-Level."  
"So that's what the problem was…" I said. "I'm guessing that if that wasn't the case, really, we would've had a much easier time combating the Kaiser, hell, Chimairamon probably would've been dead within few minutes after he had been unleashed." The others nodded.  
"But the Crests' power is in everyone's hearts, so it's not lost." Patamon informed.  
"So we still have a chance to evolve again someday." believed Tailmon.  
"That's why you said you couldn't reach Perfect-Level yesterday?" Miyako pieced things together. Tentomon, Patamon and Tailmon all nodded.

"Why didn't you say anything until now?" Iori inquired which gave the three older Chosen Children looks of shame on their face.  
"We didn't mean to hide it…" Hikari said. "It was just a bit sad to say they couldn't evolve to Perfect-Level…"  
"In fact, it's not like they won't ever be able to evolve again." Takeru sounded more hopeful. "We still hope they'll be able to do it like before someday."  
"I see." Iori nodded.  
"Back then, when MetalGarurumon and WarGreymon combined… They became Omegamon, who had more than ten times their power, and was able to defeat an enemy they couldn't defeat before."  
"Yeah! He was so strong and cool!" Miyako was going a bit fangirlish.  
"This time, through Jogress Evolution, XV-mon and Stingmon, along with Growmon and Strikedramon combined and gained the power they needed to defeat the pair of Perfect-Level Okuwamon that faced them."  
"You mean, since they couldn't reach Perfect-Level normally, the Jogress-Evolved?"

"If that's the case, we have no time to waste!" I pointed out. "That pushy woman has to be our new enemy, right?"  
"I can't believe she attacked us with two Perfect-Level Digimon created from Dark Towers…" Hikari said with an upset look on her face.  
"I wonder who she is." Iori wondered.  
"I guess we'll have to be careful." warned Takeru.  
"Let's get to the Digital World, then!" I got up off the floor. "We have no idea what she's going to do next!"  
"Right. C'mon, let's go!" Miyako stood up.  
"Whoa, slow down a bit… I think you guys should at least take a day off after all this!" Koushiro advised.  
"But!"  
"He's right…" Takeru said causing the both of us to huff in defeat.

The next moment later, the door open up and Koushiro's mother walked in.  
"I brought you some snacks, everyone!" She was holding glasses of juice and little donuts.  
"Donuts!" Miyako got over her disappointment fast.  
"Thanks for the food!" We all bowed before digging in.  
"Um… Kae-han, could I be willing to have some extras?" Tentomon asked.  
"You already ate a bunch an hour ago…" Koushiro groaned as he leaned back on his chair causing all of us to laugh.

Certainly learned some new things these past two days, I just hope what we've got is enough to stop that woman…

* * *

Dealing with that woman is gonna be a lot more difficult than you think Daisuke.

See you guys later.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	34. The Insect Charmer's Trap!

A bit late in the day for this one, but still, a chapter completed is a chapter completed.

Shoutouts to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** , and **GreenD109** for the reviews. Oh, 18, don't worry, the little pixie will be showing up soon.

Anyways, let's get on with this.

* * *

 **Chapter 33: House of Horrors! The Insect Charmer's Trap!**

 _Digital World. October 2nd, 2002. 1643 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

With recent events and discoveries; our new goal was clear. We were going to have to put our reconstruction efforts on hold thanks to that witch. Anything we'd help repair, she'd probably get a Dark Tower Digimon to destroy it. That's still hard to believe… that she can take her hair and use it to transform a Dark Tower into a Digimon. Though she looks it, she isn't human, that much I know. So now our goal was clear; we need to destroy every single Dark Tower that remains so we can cut off that woman's source of loyal Digimon and put whatever plan she has on ice. All of us are working hard right now after school trying to destroy as many as possible… but there's a lot more than we originally thought… Still, we know the alternative, so we might as well bear with it.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

There certainly are a lot of Dark Towers in this desert we were currently in, but at the very least; we don't have to deal with any Digimon guarding them so they're easy targets for our pumped up Digimon.  
"X-Laser!"  
"Alright!" Daisuke cheered.  
"Glide Horn!" "Tail Hammer!" "Sanctuary Bind!"  
"Great, great, great!" Hikari excitedly cheered while clapping with Takeru over the good work our Digimon were doing. After a few more hours, a trail of wrecked Dark Towers laid before us. That should put a damper on that woman's mood.

"Guys!" I opened the door at Headquarters and brought in a bag of food for the Digimon in thanks of all their work today. "Sorry to make you wait. Good job, everyone!" The Digimon all quickly dug into their food.  
"Hey, look at this!" Miyako motioned us to the computer screen.  
"What is it?" Takeru asked.  
"I'm sure it's Ken-kun and Ichijouji-san!" Miyako showed us a black box that turned white.  
"They're working hard too. Look at Chibimon!" Daisuke pointed to his partner. Chibimon was happily eating a rice ball.  
"Hey, hey, what was it like when you Jogress-Evolve?" Upamon asked.  
"What was it like…" He stood up off the floor. "Like an amazing burst of energy coming up from inside me!"  
"Like when we turn from Child to Adult-Level?" wondered Poromon.  
"No, much greater!"

"What about your mind? After all, there are two minds in one body, right?" Tailmon inquired.  
"It didn't feel like two minds. It was like… Like our minds combined into one." Chibimon explained it as best as he could.  
"I wonder what minds combining is like." Patamon sounded very curious about that. Chibimon crossed his arms and looked deep in thought.  
"Looks like the Digimon are the most curious about Jogress Evolution." Daisuke observed.  
"Well, they're the ones doing it." Takeru reminded.  
"Hey, how was it for you, Daisuke-kun?" Hikari turned around to him. "Did you feel anything?"  
"Of course I did! I felt Ken's heartbeat… thump, thump…" He patted his chest. "I felt it inside me!"  
"So the beats were synchronized?" Miyako stood up from her chair.  
"Eh? Me and Ken, synchronizing…?" He held his nose, like he was thinking of swimming.  
"U-um…" I stepped forward. "It's not synchronized swimming… It means they matched." Daisuke went red faced.  
"Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean…"

"But why was it Ichijouji-san's and Ross-chan's Digimon?" Hikari was curious about the Jogress. "Daisuke-kun and Ken-kun makes more sense… but those two… Ah, I'm not saying it's wrong. But about the combination…" She soon began walking towards the whiteboard we had. "I wonder if Jogress Evolution would be possible with other Digimon. For example… XV-mon and Angemon." We all quickly imagined what that would be like. "There are many possibilities. XV-mon and Tailmon. XV-mon and Aquilamon. XV-mon and Ankylomon." She sure is using XV-mon a lot in her ideas.  
"Eh…" I muttered, though that might have been a mistake as Daisuke looked really upset at me.  
"What? You got a problem Jogress-Evolving with us?" He shouted.  
"No, that's not what I meant!" I yelled back. "I just think we don't need to force them to Jogress-Evolve. I don't even like fighting…" I told him. "One form is enough…"  
"If you have something to say, say it!"  
"No, it's nothing. We don't have to Jogress-Evolve…"  
"Then stop grumbling!"  
"Angemon and Aquilamon." Is Hikari still on that?  
"Ankylomon and Tailmon." Oh, dear, now Takeru's getting into it.  
"Desperado Blaster!" Chibimon shouted as he pretended to give a demonstration to the other Digimon.

 _Digital World. October 2nd, 2002. 1853 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Another evening destroying Dark Towers and talking with Ken got my mind running. After a long thought, I finally spoke up.  
"Jogress Evolution is too dangerous." I say.  
"You think so?" Ken wondered.  
"Yeah. Listen…" I turn to Monodramon and Wormmon. "If it gives you two the power to reach Perfect-Level, it means you're using a huge amount of energy." Ken's friend Koushiro sent him a message giving out all the details he came up with Jogress Evolution the other day. I paused in my little theory and began walking. "In other words, the burden on your body is enormous. It may even shorten your lifespan."  
"Is that true?" Wormmon asked.  
"I-I don't have any proof… it's just my own speculation."  
"I don't know, Onii-san… I know you're just trying to protect Monodramon, but…" Ken said.  
"I… just don't want something bad to happen again because of me." He quietly nodded.

"Well, Osamu-chan." Monodramon jumped onto the destroyed Dark Tower I was walking on. "If you don't want me to Jogress with Growmon, then I won't do it."  
"And I'll do the same with XV-mon." Wormmon added.  
"Osamu-chan, you're really worried about us, aren't you?" I said nothing to Monodramon.  
"Right, Osamu-chan?" Now Wormmon tried to get my attention.  
"L-Let's go home." I turned and started heading back to the TV.  
 _"_ _Onii-san, I know you can't lie. I understand you're still not sure about joining the rest of us. But it's fine. I'll wait alongside you until you're ready to decide."_ Ken thought to himself.  
"Come on, let's go." I told them. They nodded and followed suit. I just kept moving forward but wondering what should I do next? I guess destroying the Dark Towers is the best thing I can do to try to atone for my sins for now.

 _Digital World. October 3rd, 2002. 0813 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Morning came to areas of the Digital World once more and all throughout it were the signs of the slowly dismantled remains of the Digimon Kaiser's once great empire. Wrecked Dark Towers were lying around like dark eyesores across the Digital World; but it was better than them staying up. In the desert where most of the New Breed had been yesterday, the woman in red was very much upset at this turn.  
"What have they done?" She continued to stare at the ruined obelisks. "Do those kids think this is some athletic meet event?" Fourteen Chosen Children going after Dark Towers were quickly beginning to add up and it was driving her insane. "This is on a whole different level!" She quickly thought that perhaps she should've been more discreet with her attacks before dismissing it.

Her attention was quickly changed when she noticed one of the TV's that the Chosen Children used to jump back and forth from to the Digital World was beeping. It turns out the TV had been recording.  
"What's this?" She questioned as she brushed away some sand that was building up. She then hit play and the recording showed the backs of Hikari, Miyako and Iori.  
"But where could that woman be?" Iori questioned.  
"Destroying the Dark Towers is important, but it just doesn't end…" Takeru said as he and Daisuke appeared.  
"We gotta capture that woman and stop the destruction!" concluded Daisuke. The tape rewinded and repeated the scene again. The woman had an angry look on her face and kicked the TV in, smashing it and leaving it to be claimed by the sands.  
"Capture me!?" She shouted. "Stop the destruction? You better not underestimate me. If you want to meet me so badly, you will." She pulled out a pink cellphone and began to dial. "And then regret your own foolishness."

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 3rd, 2002. 1440 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"'To the Chosen Children: if you want to meet me, come to the Giga House.'" Daisuke read off the mysterious message that had been sent on his D-Terminal; while we sat at Headquarters getting ready to head back to the Digital World once more. "This should be fun!" He declared.  
"Fun!? But it has to be a trap!" Hikari reminded him.  
"We know, but we'll have to fight her sooner or later." defended Takeru. He did make a valid point. We decided that even though it was a trap, we were going to have to deal with it if we wanted to stop that woman. But we made sure to have a plan just in case.  
"Digital Gate, open! Guys, once again, we're coming back if it looks dangerous." I went over the backup plan once more.  
"Understood!" Daisuke pumped his arm before I held my D-3 to the screen.  
"Chosen Children, let's roll!" I shouted.

When we got to the Digital World, the Giga House… was not what we were expecting. It looked like a normal home you'd see in an American suburb… except the thing was titanic! Outside the front was a sign.  
"It says 'For Sale – Giga House.'" V-mon read it.  
"Wh-that's with that house?" Daisuke questioned.  
"It's huge… it's really huge."  
"It's thirty times the size of a normal house, dagyaa." estimated Armadimon.  
"It's like we're in the land of the giants that appears in Gulliver's Travels…" Iori believed.  
"Really? I was getting more of a **_Honey, I Shrunk the Kids_** vibe." Hikari mentioned. Guessing that's a film Ross has shown her.  
"Hey, shouldn't we go back?" I suggested as it looked a bit dangerous.  
"I agree, it looks like a trap anywhere you look." Hikari went back to a serious attitude.  
"It does, but…" Takeru sounded like he was about to argue.  
"If you think that… then you should go back." We turned to see Osamu and Ken standing behind us.  
"Hey!" Daisuke waved as V-mon ran up to Wormmon.

"You guys got the e-mail too?"  
"Yeah, we knew it was a trap from the start… but a trap you know about could be used to your advantage." Ken explained. There he goes thinking several steps ahead.  
"I thought it was only sent to me, though…" Osamu said. "But it looks like you got it too."  
"It'd be convenient for the enemy to gather us all in one place." Hikari guessed.  
"If that's the case, then why not invite everyone else?" Ken wondered. "Speaking of others, Ross-san?" He was probably referring to the whole fact that Guilmon and Monodramon can Jogress together. Hikari shook her head.  
"He's at the optometrist."  
"Ah, smart." Osamu quickly mentioned as he adjusted his own glasses. "Anyways, she's right. That woman just wants us all it one place to take us out quick. It's all the more reason for you not to go."

"You say that, but you plan to go alone? Are you planning on asking Ken to stay behind again?" Daisuke augured. "It's too dangerous. Let's go together!"  
"I'm inclined to agree, Onii-san… there is strength in numbers." added Ken.  
"Hold it!" I interrupted. "We agreed that we'd just check it out first, didn't we?" I reminded everyone. Everyone got a bit apprehensive.  
"Hey, how about this? First, Daisuke-kun, Ken-kun, Ichijouji-san and I will go in. Everyone else will stay out here." Takeru suggested. Both Hikari and I nodded.  
"I'm going too!" Iori spoke up.  
"Okay, you're coming with us." Daisuke agreed.  
"Right."  
"Uh… then, we can't leave Hikari-chan and Miyako-san alone, so…" Takeru made his concern clear. Hey, we're not helpless that we can't take care of ourselves

"I think you all really should also stay here." Osamu said once more.  
"No way. Ken won't leave you and as his Jogress Evolution partner, I have to go too." Daisuke insisted. "It'd be bad if something happened." He said nothing to answer.  
"I'm telling you again, don't be reckless." I explained once again.  
"Don't worry, I won't let them." Iori claimed.  
"Okay, recon team, let's go!" Daisuke started to run ahead.  
"Lead the way, Daisuke!" Ken said as he, Osamu, Iori and their Digimon all followed him. I hope this isn't a huge mistake we're walking into.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Coming in knowing it's a trap…" The woman observed through a telescope while standing on the roof of the house. "Reckless, aren't we? These kids should know an adult isn't going to play around. If I say I'll destroy you, I will. I won't go easy on you." The boys soon reached the building and ended up in the kitchen after climbing through the window.  
"What Iori said earlier, about Gulliver's Travels… You were spot on!" Daisuke complimented.  
"I have no idea what you're talking about…" V-mon muttered. "What's Gulliver's Travels?"  
"It's about a boy who plants a beanstalk, climbs it and gets to the land of the giants."  
"Um, that's Jack and the Beanstalk." Iori corrected him to Daisuke's embarrassment.  
"Wait, Jack and Gulliver are different people? Are they?" He turned to Osamu and Ken.  
"Uh, yeah, they are… but both stories involve giants so you're not that wrong." Ken gave Daisuke a break on that mix-up.

"Anyway, let's explore the house." Osamu reminded and the group ran a couple of feet on the counter. However, a sound began to echo causing them to stop.  
"Wh-what the?" Daisuke questioned. "Was it my imagination?"  
"No, I heard it too." Iori said.  
"Yeah, same here." Ken added.  
"Sounds… like music?" Osamu looked like he was trying to concentrate on the sound.  
"Something's coming!" warned V-mon.  
"Be careful, dagyaa." Armadimon advised.  
"I have a bad feeling about this…" tensed up Wormmon.  
"Hold steady, Wormmon…" Monodramon helped steel his nerves. The answer to their questions came when hordes of Gokimon began coming out of every nook and cranny in the kitchen.  
"It's a Gokimon army, dagyaa!" Armadimon cried. The whole kitchen was swarming with them and the boys were now completely surrounded.

"Huh?" Tailmon's ears perked up outside with the backup team.  
"What's wrong?" Hikari asked her.  
"Did you just hear something?"  
"I didn't hear anything."  
"Strange… it must be my imagination. C-Could it be…?" She suddenly looked up and realized it wasn't her imagination as a swarm of Flymon was bearing down on them.  
"There's a lot of them! They're about to attack us!" Hawkmon observed.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" "Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" "Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!" Our Digimon evolved to their Adult-Levels and set up a perimeter around us as the Gokimon charged. They began stepping and punching any of the roaches that were trying to get close to us. Of course, with how many there were, a few got to us. One tackled me and I don't know what he was planning to do but I quickly threw him off of me. Ken's Judo training kicked in and he was chopping and tossing several of the roaches down.  
"Men!" Iori shouted as he slapped a Gokimon in the face with a large spoon. Osamu ducked away from one Gokimon that was near him and threw a left hook which knocked the bug off the counter.  
"They just keep on coming! This will go on forever!" Ankylomon began to worry.  
"Daisuke!" XV-mon got my attention.  
"Right! Ken, Jogress Evolution!" I looked down to the floor where Ken was sitting on Stingmon's shoulder and was also with Ankylomon.

Ken said nothing to me before he turned to look at Osamu beside me before turning his attention back to me.  
"Ken-chan…" Stingmon looked at him.  
"Ken, come on man! Jogress Evolution!" I shouted.  
"Isn't that a bit overkill?" He told me. What?  
"He's right, we can't!" Iori stated.  
"Can't?" Now I turned to him.  
"Look at our enemies!" I turned to see the Gokimon. "They're not controlled by Evil Rings or Spirals."  
"Then, are they Dark Towers?" I suggested.  
"Do we have proof?" Osamu asked me.  
"Well… no… I guess…"  
"There's way to many of them for them to all be Dark Towers." theorized Ken.  
"It's settled then, let's get out of here." Iori ordered.  
"Agreed, dagyaa!" Ankylomon swatted away another roach.  
"Let's do that." XV-mon picked up me and Iori while Strikedramon grabbed Osamu.  
"O-okay. Guys, we're getting out of here!" I swallowed my pride and we started to make our escape.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

We rode on our flying Digimon in order to escape the massed swarm of Flymon that were chasing us but they were keeping up and their stingers were flying all around us.  
"What's these guys' problem!?" Miyako shouted as she ducked to avoid another stinger.  
"They're Flymon." Aquilamon answered.  
"I know that! I mean, why are they attacking us!?"  
"I have no idea!" We flew towards the grass… only to find a swarm of Snimon lying in wait for us. They jumped up but we dodge them and they ran into the Flymon swarm.  
"What should we do, Hikari?" Nefertimon asked me.  
"What to do…?" I muttered as I kept hanging on to her. "Snimon and Flymon… there are too many enemies!" The swarms regrouped and we coming back around.  
"To the Giga House! Get inside!" Takeru ordered.  
"Silver Blaze!" Pegasmon blasted a hole through the window glass and we few in with the swarm close behind.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

We fled into the laundry room where there was a sink that XV-mon had jumped on and grabbed a faucet. He used it to begin hosing the Gokimon until all of them were washed down the drain.  
"Good job, XV-mon! You got rid of the Gokimon army!" Daisuke praised. Suddenly, that weird sound we heard earlier began echoing once again.  
"There it is again…" I mutter. Soon, yellow and red worm creatures began climbing down silk treads and landed on the dryer.  
"There's a different bunch now…"  
"That's because those are Kunemon! Larva Digimon with lightning patterns on their bodies. Their special attack is Electric Thread." Stingmon explained.  
"Leave them to me!" Strikedramon jumped forward but the Kunemon shot their attacks electrocuted him, knocking him back towards the washing machine. Suddenly, more Kunemon appeared from behind and fired… and electrocuted Osamu!  
"AHGHGHG!" He screamed as electricity tore through his body before he fell off Strikedramon and into the spinning washer.  
"Osamu-chan!" Strikedramon jumped after him.

I was wracked with horror as neither of them were coming out. Iori could probably tell and was quick to try and save him.  
"Ankylomon! Armor-Evolve to Sabmarimon!" He shouted.  
"Of course, dagyaa!" He devolved back to Armadimon.  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Whirling Sincerity, SABMARIMON!" Iori quickly hopped into his Digimon.  
"Alright, Sabmarimon, let's go!"  
"Let's do it, dagyaa!" He jumped up, swatted away the Kunemon in his path and tore a hole through the washing machine. A few moments later, a torrent of water shot out and washed away the Kunemon. Sabmarimon had Strikedramon holding one arm on his fins while Osamu was in his other arm before they all went up into the house's vents. Daisuke, myself and our Digimon followed them up.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We kept on flying with no sign of Daisuke or the others and those bugs were still hot on our tails.  
"We need to find Daisuke-kun and the others now." I stated.  
"But where are they?" Hikari looked around.  
"It'll be faster if we split up!" suggested Miyako.  
"Okay!" Hikari and I agreed and we split up at a hall way. We went left, she went right and it split up the swarm too.  
"We can't look for them like this!" I heard her yell. "Trying to get away is hard enough!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The boys were catching their breath up in the vents before Osamu ran over to where Iori was standing.  
"Hida-kun! You saved us. Thank you!" He bowed.  
"Thanks, Armadimon." Strikedramon nodded.  
"Well…" Armadimon rubbed his head, slightly embarrassed by the praise.  
"Ichijouji-san, don't get the wrong idea. I was just repaying the favor, when you saved me from Thunderballmon." explained Iori.  
"Really?" Daisuke questioned.  
"Yes!"  
"Anyway, thanks." Osamu bowed once more. "Ken, Motomiya-kun, if we keep wasting time, more enemies will appear." Osamu's mind was now back onto the battle at hand.  
"You're right about that, Onii-san. We need to keep going." Ken agreed.

Takeru and Hikari continued being pursued by the Snimon who's Shadow Sickle was tearing up everything in their path.  
"Curse of the Queen!" Nefertimon blew two holes in a door and she and Pegasmon flew through them. The Snimon tried to follow but they all just got stuck trying to fit through at once. They ended up in a study room with a computer.  
"Where are we?" Hikari asked.  
"Looks like a study." Takeru answered. The Snimon soon began to cut holes and try to get in. "Get behind that bookshelf!" The two Digimon took cover and they held their position; hopeful the bugs would leave.

The boys ran through the vents where they were hearing the sounds of music being played and headed for the source of it.  
"It's the flute we heard before." Osamu muttered.  
"It's certainly a flute." Ken agreed.  
"Yeah." Both Daisuke and Iori nodded as Strikedramon tore down the grate and the Digimon jumped out into the rafters of the attic… where the woman was standing and playing the flute.  
"So this is where you were hiding!" Daisuke growled.  
"We'll settle things once and for all." Osamu coldly stated.  
"Oh, my! The usually worthless boy sure is awfully enthusiastic today. Trying to impress your friends?"  
"What!?" He shouted as he stepped forward.  
"'Why? Why did it have to be me?'" The woman taunted him once more. "Then stay tormented like that forever, you idiot."  
"Damn you… Ken, Motomiya-kun, Jogress Evolution!" He ordered.  
"Yeah!" "Right!" Both of them stepped forward and nodded.

However, before they could do anything, the woman put her flute back to her lips and began playing again. Stingmon cried out in pain before his eyes glowed red and he took a swing at XV-mon.  
"Wh-what are you doing, Stingmon!?" Ken questioned. Stingmon ignored him and just kept attacking.  
"It's that flute!" Iori figured things out. "She's controlling Stingmon with that flute!"  
"Good catch, little boy." The woman congratulated.  
"Armadimon, take that flute from her!"  
"Got it, dagyaa."  
"Strikedramon, back him up." Osamu chimed in.  
"Okay, Osamu-chan."  
"Digimental Up!" Iori shouted.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!"

Ken turned his attention away from Stingmon for a moment and then suddenly realized something that Iori missed.  
"No, wait!" He shouted but it was too late. The woman played once more and Digmon's eyes soon began glowing red again as he turned to Strikedramon.  
"N-no… Digmon too…" Iori said as Strikedramon tried to keep Digmon from going after the boys.  
"It's great you noticed the flute, but you chose the wrong evolution." The woman chuckled.  
"What does that mean?"  
"That's what I was trying to say! That flute can only control Insect-type Digimon!" informed Ken. "The Gokimon and Kunemon that attacked us are also Insect Digimon."  
"If we had noticed sooner…!" Daisuke exclaimed.  
"Sooner or later, it would have made no difference." The woman said.

"Digmon!" "Stingmon!" Both of their human partners called out to them as they quickly got the upper hand over the two Dragon Digimon they fought.  
"Seriously, stop it!" Miyako cried as the Flymon's attacks were getting closer and closer to hitting her and Aquilamon. The Snimon were chopping down whatever books stood between them and the two experienced Chosen Children. Back in the attic, with both XV-mon and Strikedramon down for the moment, Digmon turned his attention on the boys. He performed a Big Crack which broke apart the wood and caused all four boys to fall. They expected to fall to their doom but were instead stopped mid-fall… as they landed on a spider web.  
"I-I can't move!" Ken yelled.  
"Th-this is a spider web!" Iori shouted. The woman laughed once more.  
"No matter how much you struggle, this will be your grave! If you're going to blame someone, blame your own foolishness for jumping into a trap!" She played her flute and a Dokugmon slowly began walking towards the immobilized boys.  
"A Dokugmon!" Daisuke panicked. They struggled as best as they could to try to escape but the writing was on the wall this time.  
"We're dead." Osamu reluctantly admitted.

If things didn't change in a hurry, Osamu's assessment would be correct…

* * *

Quite a 'sticky' situation they've gotten themselves in, eh? Heh, heh- ow! Ow! Why did I hit myself?

Well, we do now how this ends but that'll be another day. See ya.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	35. Web of the Spider Witch! Archnemon!

And now Spring Break has truly started for me. So, sorry to leave on such a cliffhanger, but most of us reading this already know how this goes.

Shoutout to **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318** and **MadDogLucario96** for the reviews. Oh, and a few things. First, MadDog… shoot! Mr. Blonde ain't here is he? Also, AT... I know what you mean... but... you and Iori clearly have some things to work out there.

Anyways, let us continue... and give you this quote to haunt your nightmares.  
"Naughty little fly, why does it cry? Caught in her web, soon you'll be...eaten!"  
Thank you, Gollum.

* * *

 **Chapter 34: Web of the Spider Witch! Archnemon!**

 _Giga House, Digital World. October 3rd, 2002. 1535 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

This is a really bad situation we've ended up in. We went to Giga House in order to stop that woman once and for all; we knew it was a trap but I guess we thought we could overcome it. Big mistake on our part. Turns out she can control Insect Digimon with a flute and now has control of Stingmon and Digmon who are currently fighting XV-mon and Strikedramon. At the same time… we've fallen onto a giant spider web and can't really move. It would be okay… but a very hungry Dokugmon is crawling towards us and it looks like we're on the menu!

That Dokugmon kept coming as the woman just kept playing her damn flute; at least the good news was that the spider sure was taking his time. Guess he likes his food full of fear before he eats.  
"I can't… move my arms!" Daisuke shouted as he kicked his legs. "Iori!" I could see Iori was watching the fight in the attic. Both Osamu and Daisuke's Digimon were now holding but they were stuck in a complete stalemate with mine and Iori's Digimon.  
"Stop it, Digmon! Please, open your eyes!" begged the youngest member of our team.  
"It's no use, Hida-kun." Osamu told him. "As long as that witch keeps playing, Stingmon and Digmon will keep attacking."  
"Uh, guys… we need to think of a plan pretty quick or we're dinner!" I reminded as I kept staring at the large spider Digimon hungrily approaching.  
"Dammit… what now then?" Daisuke struggled.

I kept struggling though my arms and feet were stuck to the web. There wasn't anything much I could do at this point, but I looked to Iori who's upper body wasn't restrained by the web. Osamu was similarly stuck like Daisuke with only his legs being free. I then quickly thought of a plan.  
"Iori-kun!"  
"Digmon, stop it!" He yelled once more.  
"Iori-kun!" I shouted once more.  
"Iori! C'mon, Iori!" "Hida-kun, please!" Daisuke and Osamu tried to help get his attention. That did it and he turned to us.  
"You're the only one with free hands. Contact the others with your D-Terminal!" I explained my idea. Maybe one of the others could quickly swoop in and save us. Iori gasped as he quickly realized it and felt slightly disappointed for not thinking of it sooner.  
"B-but…"  
"What are you waiting for? Hurry!" yelled Daisuke.  
"Yes!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Iori pulled out his D-Terminal and frantically began to type messages to Miyako, Takeru and Hikari; hopeful they'd answer and save them from being eating by the controlled spider.  
"Well, I'd like to help, but…" Miyako said aloud as she typed up a reply. She quickly looked back up as the Flymon were closing in on her and Aquilamon again. They were now coming from two different ways in the hall.  
"Miyako-san, hold on tight!" Her partner shouted as he jumped up and the two groups crashed into each other.  
"Alright!" The girl cheered. However, it was short lived as more Flymon approached. "Sorry! I can't make it!" She quickly typed as they flew away once more. Iori got the message back almost immediately.  
"No luck! She's in trouble at the moment too!" Iori informed.  
"What about Takeru? Or Hikari-chan?" Daisuke suggested. Iori typed once more.

In the study, Takeru and Hikari were in just as precarious of a situation as everyone else. Takeru shoved a book forward as the two of them hid in the bookshelf… only for a Snimon blade to poke through and nearly impale him. He and Pegasmon pushed the book and crushed the stuck bug on the floor with the book.  
"Over here!" Hikari waved from a little shelter that they made. Both Takeru and Pegasmon squeezed in as the Snimon approached. They tried to claw at them but the books were holding them back. The two of them were safe, but they were essentially trapped as well.  
"Well, at least this should hold them for a while." Takeru observed.  
"But…" Hikari sadly said. "We can't help Daisuke-kun and the rest…"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

My D-Terminal beeped and my heart sank as I read the message.  
"Takeru-san's group can't do it either!" I shouted.  
"Dammit!" Daisuke growled. "Maybe the others like Taichi-san or-"  
"It'd take too long and they'd be too late!" Ken interrupted him. We all turned our attention back to the fight above.  
"Damn it… if we could get rid of that flute…!" XV-mon complained as the woman kept on playing her twisted song.  
"But she won't let us through!" Strikedramon angrily cried.  
"It's hopeless…" I admitted in defeat.  
"Don't give up!" Osamu countered.  
 _"_ _Even though he's the closest to Dokugmon… I have to be strong too."_ I thought to myself. I quickly look around for something that could help us. I then noticed it. There was an AC control panel right underneath a large AC unit that the cobweb was attached to.  
"That's it! If we could turn on that air conditioner somehow, the wind would…"  
"Yeah!" Everyone nodded.

Osamu looked around before he saw a chunk of wood near his feet.  
"Hey, Motomiya-kun, Ken! You guys ever wanted to be on the same team?" He put the wood chunk between his feet. "Just pretend this is a ball! Ken, I'll send it to you, you pass it to Motomiya-kun, and he kicks it to turn on that air conditioner."  
"Got it!" They both replied. Osamu used his feet to pass the wood to Ken who managed to get his knee to bounce it over to Daisuke who essentially bicycle kicked it.  
"He shoots!" We watched the wood fly towards the button… and it hit! The AC began powering up. "He scores!" Daisuke cheered.  
"Yeah!" "Good job!" "Way to go!" The three of us gave our praise. The air conditioning turned on and the whole web began to bounce before it snapped and Dokugmon fell. However, the whole thing began to come undone and we soon began to fall once more. I thought I was going to die before I felt Osamu grabbing my leg. I looked up and saw that he was hanging on a strand like Daisuke and Ken.  
"Don't worry, I got you." We all slowly dropped down on to a large and soft bed.

"XV-mon!" Daisuke called out to his Digimon partner. "Over here! Hurry!"  
"Okay!"  
"Go! I hold them off!" Strikedramon volunteered to keep Digmon and Stingmon occupied while XV-mon tried to assist us. However, Digmon's attack struck XV-mon in the back who groaned out in pain as he fell down from the hole. He quickly landed on the bed and picked us all up and safely took us to the floor before he finally fell on his knees and devolved back into V-mon.  
"Thanks, V-mon." Daisuke picked him up. We then heard Strikedramon yell out in pain. We all quickly looked up and saw him falling down towards us. We jumped out of the way as he slammed on the floor and devolved back to Monodramon.  
"Monodramon! Are you okay?" Osamu ran to him.  
"Eh… I'll live… but boy am I in pain…" This was bad. Now we had no Digimon that could protect us from Digmon and Stingmon or any other bugs that woman could send our way.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

We were pretty exposed right now and needed to find some shelter for our Digimon to quickly rest up for a few moments before they could get back in the fight. Normally, we'd probably have to wait longer, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. We all looked up at a dresser drawer and thought that would be a good place. We ran over to the lowest drawer and slowly began to open it up. Then, Ken and I grabbed a large slipper that we could use as a makeshift ladder and get in there. We climbed in as Ken was the last one in, while Stingmon and Digmon jumped down and headed right towards us.  
"We have to close it!" Ken shouted.  
"But how?" I questioned as we didn't truly think that far in our plan. Our answer came when the two Digimon crashed into it and closed it for us.  
"Lucky!" Motomiya sighed in relief.  
"Let's hope so…" V-mon didn't sound very confident. Turns out he was right as a loud rumbling sound came from outside. My guess was that Digmon was doing what he does best and trying to drill his way through the wood and to us.

"I can't believe Digmon turned into an enemy…" Hida sounded really down at the moment.  
"Hey, someone quickly explain it to me. How can that flute control Insect Digimon?" Daisuke asked.  
"It's the sound. The vibrations in the air." Ken explained.  
"If we could eliminate the sound, it would help." I told him.  
"But we won't be able to get our hands on that flute so easily…" admitted the google wearing boy. He is right… who know what tricks that woman has if we got within grabbing distance of her. We all quickly went into deep thought. After a moment, Ken looked like he came up with something.  
"That's it! Do you know the story about the moths and bats?" I quickly realized what he meant and snapped my fingers.  
"Ken, you're a genius." I gave a smile. "Moths listen to sounds emitted by bats in order to escape."  
"They don't just listen. Moths also emit sounds that mix up with the bat's sounds and disorient their sense of direction." Ken continued to explain, mostly for Hida and Motomiya.

"Boy, you guys sure know a lot…" Motomiya rubbed his head in embarrassment. Guess he was lost or something.  
"So what you're saying is, if we could distort the sound of that flute, the insect Digimon would return to normal?" Well, Hida at least figured it out.  
"Exactly." Ken told him.  
"But is that a sound we can make?" Motomiya pointed out. And now we're back to square one again.  
"That's impossible… we need to know the flute's wavelength to begin with." I said.  
"So we have a solution, but we can't do anything." Ken clenched his fists. After a few moments, Motomiya quickly came up with an answer.  
"Wait, if that's the case…"

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

These Flymon just don't know when to give up. The chase just continued until I got a messaged from Iori again. He explained their situation and the plan they had. It could work… but there was one issue.  
"Well, that's my specialty, but without a computer…" I said mostly to myself. I messaged to Takeru and Hikari for some help as we went back into the hallway. A quick response later, she informed me that the room she and Takeru had hunkered down in; the study, there was a computer in there. I pulled out my D-3 to try to find where exactly the study was. "Let's seen… Hikari-chan's location…" I almost immediately picked them up. "The left door!" I shouted to Aquilamon.  
"Roger that!" He dived down and headed to the hole that was left in the door. I looked back to see those dumb Flymon all decided to try to go through at once and ended up getting stuck together in the door.

As I got into the room, I saw the Snimon horde all on top of each other as they were focused on this large pile of books. The books quickly moved and the horde was all crushed by the large books where it was revealed that Takeru and Hikari were there. Aquilamon soon began hovering over the keyboard and I jumped off, making a perfect landing on the power button. A moment later, the computer screen came on.  
"Bingo!" I cheered.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Daisuke quickly informed us that Miyako had reached Takeru and Hikari and those two would support her to do what we needed her to do at the computer.  
"Nice! Okay, can you explain how to do it?" Our plan was to capture the sound of the flute and then play a loud sound to distort it and free all the Insect Digimon under its musical spell.  
"W-well…" "Um…" Both me and Osamu hesitated to ask.  
"What?"  
"Sound-related software…I'm not exactly interested in music… so I don't really know how to use it." Osamu explained to his disappointment.  
"Yeah, the same goes for me, I'm afraid." I added which caused Daisuke and V-mon's jaws to drop.  
"What!? The Boy Geniuses of Tamachi don't know something and it's the very thing we need to do to stay alive!?" Daisuke shouted.  
"Ah, don't worry about that. Miyako-san is a specialist in that field." Iori assured us.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Really?" Hikari questioned what Miyako had told us while we waited for the computer program to boot up.  
"Yeah. My oldest sister, Momoe, is in drama, and I make the sound effects and stuff." She said as Pegasmon and Nefertimon were taking some more books to build a barricade to protect us while we work on stopping that flute. "Oh, and with Izumi-senpai, I help with the synthesizing for Yamato-san's band, the Teenage Wolves." Really?  
"I see… so that's how they achieve that sound with only four people." I chuckled. "I mean, I kept hearing brass instruments when no one was playing them, so I thought I was hearing things." A few Snimon began to climb over the barricade before being struck back by Shurimon.  
"Everyone, this is not the time!" He reminded.  
"Right. Let's hurry." Nefertimon nodded.  
"Sorry, sorry." Miyako quickly apologized.

The program showed that it was now fully loaded and we were ready to continue with the plan.  
"Takeru-kun, connect the mic to the computer." Miyako ordered me. I nodded. "Shurimon, you cover him!"  
"Understood. Now let us proceed, Takeru-san!" I ran over to the mic with him.  
"Hikari-chan, you'll help me with the mouse." The girls ran over to the mouse and looked like they were ready. "Okay, let's do it!" A beep from the D-Terminal went off.  
"Iori-kun says Digmon and Stingmon are almost through the drawer, we've got to hurry!" Hikari alerted as I grabbed the cord to the microphone and picked it up to plug into the computer.  
"I know, I know!" Pegasmon and Nefertimon stood on top of the barricade and kept holding the Snimon back while the girls moved the mouse. "Stop!" Miyako told her before she clicked down on the button. "Takeru-kun, how's it going?" I finished plugging the cord in.  
"All set!" I gave her a thumbs up.

"Stop!" Miyako told Hikari once more. "We're recording that sound!" She clicked a button and now was the moment of truth. Would the mic pick up that flute? I guess we were as Miyako climbed on top of the computer and grabbed another cord as she hung over the computer. "Stop recording! From here…" She ran across the screen. "To here!" Hikari complied and moved the mouse to do what Miyako wanted.  
"Got it!" Miyako ran up to her after she got back on the keyboard.  
"Invert the selected part and delete the parts you don't need, then select it all, reverse sound waves, and save as a new sound file! Then play it on a loop!" Both Hikari and I were completely lost on that.  
"I didn't get any of that…" She told her.  
"Sorry, sorry… But this should work."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

However, as soon as they done that, Digmon and Stingmon had broken through to the boys' horror.  
"Ah, still not done!?" Daisuke shouted. At the same time in the study, the Flymon discovered their mistake and began flying out in one by one fashion.  
"The moment you've been waiting for!" Miyako shouted. "Play the loop!"  
"Here we go!" Hikari clicked the mouse and started the audio as the bug swarm was almost on top of them. The speakers loudly played the song and the bugs all throughout the house began to stop what they were doing.  
"It… worked?" Daisuke questioned as Stingmon and Digmon stood still above them.  
"I think we did it…" Takeru observed as the bugs slowly shook their heads and began to fly away.  
"Huge success!" Miyako cheered once more.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Looks like the plan did work as Digmon and Stingmon weren't currently tearing us to shreds at the moment, so that's good to know.  
"Digmon!" Iori ran up to his partner.  
"What's wrong, Iori?"  
"What are we doing here, anyway?" Stingmon asked in confusion. We all quickly climb back out before I quickly realize something.  
"Wait, what? You mean you can't remember anything?" V-mon quickly tugs on my arm and then shakes his head. I quickly knew what he meant." No, it's nothing! Don't worry about it!" I dismiss. Best to keep the whole 'trying to kill us' thing under wraps.

I soon turn my head back towards that hole in the ceiling.  
"Anyway, that woman…" She looked completely stunned by this sudden turn of the tables on her. I couldn't help but mock. "Serves you right! Nyah nyah naya!" That may have been a mistake as she got really angry at us. What she did next completely shocked us. She jumped all the way down from the ceiling and onto the floor in front of us. Our jaws nearly dropped and we all got on guard.  
"Jumping from that height without getting injured…" Iori said.  
"You can't be…" Osamu tried to say something but the woman had him beat on that.  
"Not human, you mean? Yeah, that's correct. I am…" Her back makes a sickening crack as she bends forward before her whole body begins to slowly morph… into something else. Her whole lower body and legs became large and round, her arms lengthened and she grew horns. That round bulbous part of her then sprouted out six more legs. She now looked more like a spidery minotaur what with her upper body attached to that bulbous part of her. "Archnemon!" We all collectively gasped in shock.

Suddenly, things made much more sense with the things she was doing, turning Dark Towers into Digimon, controlling Insect Digimon, her superhuman abilities… guess we should've know she was a shapeshifting Digimon.  
"I wonder if you're luck to see my true identity… or unlucky?"  
"What's that mean!?" I shouted.  
"You have no chance of defeating me in this form."  
"So, what? You're a Digimon; we'll be you all the same!" Monodramon declared.  
"Poor fools… Spider Thread!" These gems on the top of her hands shot out this sickly red colored vine at us, more specifically, me! I scream out in shock before V-mon gets in front of me.  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON! Strong Crunch!" He quickly snapped the thread with his teeth.  
"I have more than one!" She tosses out more.  
"Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!" His evolution wouldn't help that much as all of the Digimon were blown out of the room and into the hallway.

We followed from a safe distance as Takeru's group arrived with their Digimon.  
"Wh-what is that Digimon?" Hikari questioned as Archnemon quickly crawled after our Digimon.  
"In any case, the others are in danger!" Takeru said.  
"Curse of the Queen!" Archnemon jumped back to avoid the attack that was sent.  
"Silver Blaze!" She quickly dodged that one too, though it made her look somewhat worried. She quickly ran up on the wall and jumped towards Nefertimon and Pegasmon.  
"Kusanagi!" Shurimon threw his large shuriken but the spider woman merely jumped on it and used it to boost her until she was upside down on the ceiling. Takeru and Hikari were quickly left on the floor while their Digimon turned around and flew up towards the witch.  
"Acid Mist!" She released a green gas from her mouth that hit the two flying Digimon that crippled them in pain. "Spider Thread!" They were then quickly whipped to the floor.

"You're not a match for her!" Stingmon reluctantly admitted.  
"Leave her to us!" XV-mon told them.  
"Ken! Let's go!" I shouted to him.  
"Okay!"  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!" The merged Digimon turned his attention back towards the spider.  
"You're no match for me, all the same!" taunted Archnemon.  
"What!?" Paildramon jumped up and got kicked in the face by her. He crashed right through the paper of a sliding door as she followed him.  
"Die!" She screamed.  
"Esgrima!" The top spike on his hand glowed and shot forward like a spike, similar to Stingmon's Spiking Finish, and stabbed her in the shoulder. She clutched her gaping wound before landing in a small trash can.  
"Keep it up, Paildramon!" "You can't lose!" Ken and I encouraged. Archnemon jumped back out and began running while Paildramon ran parallel to her.  
"Spider Thread!"  
"Desperado Blaster!" Her little strings were not match for the waves of energy bullets that struck her.  
"What?" She was clearly now completely surprised by this sudden turn.

"Let's help them out, dagyaa!" suggested Digmon.  
"Of course!" The other Digimon nodded.  
"Let's set a trap, in the dining room." Miyako ordered. "Daisuke, Ken-kun!" She called out to us. "We'll go there first, so lead Paildramon to the dining room."  
"Understood." "You can count on us!" We assured her. Paildramon grabbed Archnemon and slammed her against a wooden chair.  
"Do you give up?" He stood over her.  
"Never!" She got back up and tried to jump him but he simply hopped over her.  
"Paildramon! Change of location!" I waved at him.  
"To the dining room!" Ken shouted.  
"Got it!" He complied. We then ran to the dining room first and laid in wait for the ambush.

"They're coming!" Iori exclaimed as he was on look out.  
"Guys, get ready!" Miyako said.  
"Yeah!" We all replied. Paildramon turned the corner and so did Archnemon… right into our trap!  
"Welcome!" Miyako smirked and she and Shurimon threw salt and pepper on her. She fell and crawled away… towards Digmon on a can of bug spray.  
"Have some of this, dagyaa!" She turned where she found Strikedramon holding a giant flyswatter.  
"Heads up!" Osamu taunted as Strikedramon swatted her away. She tried crawling away once more but Takeru and Hikari on their Digimon were ready with a snapped electrical cord that was plugged in.  
"We're not done yet!" "Just getting started!" The two of them said as they charged and fried her with the large amounts of volts that tore through her.  
"Now!" "Final attack!" Ken and I shouted to Paildramon.  
"Desperado Blaster!" The attack struck her in that abdomen of hers and she collapsed.

"Admit defeat!" I told her.  
"We won't go as far as taking your life." Miyako said.  
"Why do you destroy the Digital World?" Takeru questioned.  
"Answer!" Osamu demanded.  
"What a meaningless question…" She chuckled as she slowly got back up, but clearly looked worse for wear.  
"What?" Paildramon responded.  
"Why do I destroy? Because it's my life's purpose."  
"How can you turn the Dark Towers into Digimon?" Hikari now asked.  
"Another useless question… Without knowing the true nature of the Dark Towers, you wouldn't understand if I explained it. Not even you." She pointed to Osamu. "They were much more than simple evolutionary jammers or power conduits for Evil Rings and Spirals."

"I see." Nefertimon nodded. "What should we do, everyone? She won't repent." I quickly realized what she meant.  
"You're right. If we let her go, she'll just continue to destroy." Paildramon admitted.  
"But still…" Iori was reluctant.  
"Come on, don't forget what Ross-san said when we dealt with Golemon." I reminded.  
"We know, Daisuke, if we had killed her during the fight it would be okay… but with her at our mercy…" Miyako expressed her hesitation.  
"If that's how it is, then let me do it. You don't have to dirty to hands." Osamu offered. "Ken, let me give Paildramon the order."  
"Don't try to act cool!" Takeru quickly shouted at him. "How about we find a temporary place to lock her in?"  
"Softies!" She taunted us once more. "That will cost you your lives. Die!"  
"Everyone, step back!" Paildramon jumped in front of us and swatted away the tread she threw at us. "Is that all?"  
"Damn it…!" She growled.  
"If you want to settle things… then…"

"Then…" A new voice rang out. We turned our attention to a tall lanky man with a cane and all dressed in blue who was standing on one of the chairs. "What will you do?"  
"Who are you?" Paildramon asked.  
"Me? I am…" He quickly morphed into a large bandana wearing mummy and his cane was now a large rifle.  
"He's also a Digimon?" Ken exclaimed.  
"I've come to rescue you, Archnemon!"  
"Mummymon…" Well, at least we got a name.  
"Mummymon?" I questioned.

He aimed his rifle at us and began to cackle manically as he opened fire. A large electrical beam shot out and struck Paildramon, sending him flying.  
"You will pay!" Shurimon yelled as the other Digimon charged at him.  
"Snake Bandage!" He threw out a large amount of bandage wraps at our Digimon and they collapsed on the ground, completely entangled in them. He then jumped next to Archnemon as Paildramon got in front of us once more. Mummymon aimed at him once more. "This will do for today. Let's go, Archnemon." He fired at us and Paildramon had to take the force of the shot to protect us once more. Mummymon used the distraction to grab Archnemon and run off with her.

Our Digimon reverted back to their lower forms while we all regrouped.  
"Archnemon has an ally?" I shouted.  
"What's going on? What's their true goal?" Miyako asked questions that we didn't have answers to.  
"She said it's destruction herself, right?" Iori reminded.  
"Well, she did, but…"  
 _"Am I able to continue fighting that kind of enemy? One that won't rest until it's destroyed everything? And that the only way to stop them… is by killing them."_ Iori thought to himself. He then quickly realized something and ran over to bow to Osamu.  
"Thank you very much! I thought I could repay you, but I owe you even more now."  
"Owe me…? You're the one who noticed the air conditioner. That makes us even."  
"No, that doesn't count. I promise I will repay you." Osamu quickly relented.  
"Okay." He gave a small but reluctant smile.

"C'mon, Iori, stop being so creepy!" Miyako told him. "But what's this about owing something, huh?" She looked at me very unusually.  
"What was it again… Iori saved Ichijouji-san… but I don't think he did it to repay anything… What do you think, Ken?" I turned to him.  
"I agree. Iori's probably just embarrassed."  
"Well, let's hope it's that…" Miyako huffed.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A small dune buggy was rolling along the desert far from Giga House as the sun began to set on the Digital World. It's only two occupants were Mummymon and Archnemon in the human forms.  
"How are your injuries, Archnemon?" Mummymon asked as the woman bandaged her wounds up.  
"Can't you tell?"  
"That was a silly question…" He nervously stated. "Well, when we get to our hideout, I'll take really good care of your body…" He then chuckled.  
"You idiot. Why didn't you finish them off before saving me?"  
"Well, I did… but that Paildramon got in the way. Besides, there will be more opportunities to kill the little brats. You, on the other hand, are more important to the plan. So that's why I didn't continue the fight."  
"Whatever…" She scoffed. "The more important problem right now is the Dark Towers. It will be a problem if they keep being destroyed."  
"Well, you know… those two brothers… they still don't know?"  
"No…" She lightly laughed. "But they're on standby just in case… if the opportunity does come… kill those other Chosen Children before them."  
"Of course… Archnemon…" He added a bit more passion into that last word, but the meaning was all the same.

These two were clearly planning something big and the Chosen Children still had no clue what it was…

* * *

And the stakes continue to raise. And what the hell are those two talking about? Heh, I like to at least keep one of my cards to my chest.

Note, I'm gonna try to make Mummymon and Archnemon a bit more threatening and less Jesse and James like they were in the original... but damn it all, I freaking loved Kirk Thornton as that mummy.

And now our next episode will focus on one of the most emo characters I've ever watched... but Steve Blum's awesome voice makes up for it in spades. Take care everyone.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	36. The Unstoppable Warrior!

This one turned out to be a bit shorter than I though it was. Oh, well, some chapters I just don't have big extra scenes.

Shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** , and **God of the Challenge** for the reviews. To answer a few reviews, sweet 1999 _**The Mummy**_ reference there, MadDog. And Challenge... well, it's gonna be more one sided... and most of us know how it's going to end.

Anyways, let's continue to the new horror that's about to be unleashed.

* * *

 **Chapter 35: The Unstoppable Warrior! BlackWarGreymon!**

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 5th, 2002. 0832 Hours.  
P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Archnemon and Mummymon. Damn it all, if we didn't have enough problems at the moment; now we have to deal with two Perfect-Level Digimon who want to destroy everything. I knew I shouldn't have set the optometrist appointment that late in the day. If I was at the Giga House, that spider would've been dead; I wouldn't have hesitated giving the order to kill her. Eh, no use complaining now. There will be other chances to end her reign of destruction.  
"Ross-chan?" Hikari opened the door to me and Taichi's room.  
"Yeah, Hikari?"  
"Listen, the others are all getting ready to destroy more Dark Towers, would you like to help? Onii-chan has practice today so…"  
"Sure, I'll help, of course, it'll be a little later, I've got some things I'd like to handle at the moment if that's alright."  
"That's fine. I'll tell the others to expect you later."  
"Thanks, Hikari."  
"No problem, Ross-chan." She then closed the door. Well, I guess wrecking Dark Towers would be a good waste of time later today. Certainly don't have anything better to do by then. I then hit the pause button on my GameCube and went back to work. Some levels of Super Mario Sunshine can just be so hair-pulling frustrating.

 _Digital World. October 5th, 2002. 1056 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Back in the Digital World, Archnemon was in her human disguise and still resting her wounds that she suffered at the hands of the Chosen Children in her failed trap at the Giga House. She was currently sitting in an overflowing bath tub that was sitting on the edge of a large cliff. Her mind was constantly replaying the events of the failed trap and she was trying to figure out what exactly went wrong there.  
"How's the temperature?" Mummymon asked as he stopped the dune buggy not too far away from where she was currently resting now. She mostly ignored him as her thoughts remained on the last part of the fight. Being torn to shreds by Paildramon, getting pelted by salt and pepper, the bug spray, the flyswatter and of course being electrocuted by a torn power cord. She then heard the sound of the dune buggy's car door closing which indicated that Mummymon was soon walking over to approach her.

"Chosen Children…" She grumbled to herself as she looked up at the still dripping shower head.  
"How is it, Archnemon?" Mummymon asked once more as he slowly walked up to her. "How's the temperature?" She didn't bother answering as her mind just stayed focus on her humiliating defeat. "How's the temperature?" Mummymon looked over her. "Hey, say something…" She finally snapped and growled before quickly standing up and giving him an angry look.  
"I have a lot on my mind!" She soon grabbed him, picked him up and spun him around until she let go and threw him back all the way to the hood of the dune buggy. It actually pushed the car back a good ten feet and nearly fell off the cliff. Mummymon breathed a sigh of relief as the car's horn began going off. Archnemon just panted as her wounds started hurting once more. The sound of the horn ringing in her ears was just upsetting her even more. "Shut up!" She turned her attention back towards the Dark Towers once more. "Chosen Children…"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"Fire Rocket!" Fladramon tore his way through yet another Dark Tower. We were currently in a large rocky field that was completely covered in towers which was a good place for all our Digimon to truly knock them down.  
"Good!" Daisuke nodded at the work his Digimon was doing.  
"Kusanagi!" Shurimon toppled another one of them.  
"Cool!" Miyako cheered.  
"Big Crack!" Digmon demolished the one that stood in front of him.  
"Keep it up!" Iori encouraged.  
"Shooting Star!" The tower that Pegasmon struck didn't last a moment.  
"You did it!" Takeru pumped his fist.  
"Rosetta Stone!" Nefertimon took another one out.  
"Looking good!" I said as I snapped a photo with my Digital Camera.  
"Precision Sting!" Tetermon quickly dived on his tower.  
"Good job." Ken nodded.  
"Strike Claw!" Strikedramon ran up and tore the tower down right then and there. Osamu just looked proud and content but said nothing.

"Guys!" Daisuke waved us over as he was up in a tree. "Let's take a break!" He suggested. Our Digimon began devolving back to their normal forms once he said that.  
"Agreed!" V-mon nodded at him.  
"I'm so thirsty…" I said as Tailmon and I walked over to him.  
"Me too." Tailmon agreed.  
"I saw a vending machine over there." Takeru informed.  
"Let's get something!" insisted Patamon as he dropped down on Takeru's hat and covered his eyes.  
"Good idea. Let's go?" Tailmon asked Takeru.  
"I'm going too." I told them.  
"Me too, me too!" Daisuke shouted from the tree before he began to climb down.  
"Don't worry, we'll get something for you all." I assured him. He looked slightly disappointed.  
"So, what do you want?" Takeru asked. Daisuke scoffed and turned his head.  
"Whatever." We shrugged and walked away.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Why are you upset?" V-mon asked his partner who was still up in the tree as Ken and I approached.  
"No reason…"  
"Why don't you just tell me? If you're sad, I'm all ears." He's probably disappointed that Hikari walked off with Takeru.  
"Gah, I said it's nothing!" Yep, I was right.  
"What's wrong with you?" I played innocent with him as we stopped. Daisuke quickly realized we were here now.  
"Mi-Miyako-san? K-Ken?"  
"It feels weird when you add the '-san'." I told him.  
"Yeah, you almost rarely call her that." pointed out Ken. Daisuke started to get red in the face.  
"Shut up! Man, you're all the same!" I chuckled as he shouted that.  
"Oh, well." I gave him a dismissive smile. "Anyway, I need to talk to you. Can you come down?"

"What? Iori and Ichijouji-san?" Daisuke questioned as I explained the situation to him and Ken. We were all behind a rock and watched as the two of them sat on some large rocks but were looking away from one another. "So they're just ignoring each other, huh?"  
"Yeah." I nodded. "Shouldn't we do something about it?"  
"Yeah, I guess…"  
"Wait, hold up!" Ken loudly whispered. "Miyako-san, I usually respect your judgement for the most part, but whatever you're thinking… I think this is a bad idea."  
"Relax, Ken-kun. We just need to do something to make the two of them more friendly with each other. Like, this!" I quickly whispered the idea.  
"That's your idea? I feel like this is going to backfire…" Ken worried.  
"Calm down, okay. I think it'll be fine." Daisuke told him.  
"Let's at least try it." I said as Daisuke ran out from behind the rock.

"Iori! Ichijouji-san!" Daisuke called out to them. Both of them turned their attention to him. "See that Dark Tower?" He pointed to the one behind them as I kept the Digimon in cover behind the rock. The two of them turned around to take a look at it. "Fladramon's Fire Rocket couldn't take it down!"  
"What!?" V-mon got really offended about that. "It's just a stupid Dark Tower!" I quickly grabbed him and hid him behind the rock again.  
"This is for Iori and Ichijouji-san to get along!" I reminded him.  
"I see…" Both Iori and Osamu turned their attention back to Daisuke.  
"How about you try?" Daisuke rubbed the back of his head like he was embarrassed. V-mon slowly sauntered out from behind the rock as well and mimicked his human partner's motions.  
"How about you try?" He repeated before they both nervously chuckled.

A few moments later, Digmon and Strikedramon were standing side by side with one another as they stared down the tower. Both of them shouted as they charged forward.  
"Strike Claw!" "Big Crack!" The tower just exploded when they attacks struck it, it wasn't even hard. The dust kicked up and both Digimon reverted back to their Child Forms. The quickly nodded before embracing one another and laughing in cheer.  
"Alright! Success!" V-mon, Wormmon, and Hawkmon all clapped for them. At least the Digimon seemed to be on good terms.  
"Iori and Ichijouji-san's Digimon get along, but…" We walked up to the two of them as Armadimon and Monodramon continue to happily cheer with each other like they were the greatest of friends.  
"The problem is Iori and Ichijouji-san…" I looked to the two of them as they just continued to stare forward.

No one said anything for a couple of seconds before Daisuke finally snapped.  
"C'mon! You destroyed the Dark Tower together, so can't you shake hands at least!?"  
"Daisuke-san!" Iori loudly got his attention.  
"What?"  
"Fladramon alone could have destroyed it."  
"I think so too." Osamu agreed.  
"Told you it wouldn't work." Ken whispered to us, causing us both to look somewhat guilty.  
"I guess…" Daisuke finally admitted.  
"Please don't make us waste energy." Iori requested. That suddenly set me off.  
"Iori, you're so…!" Daisuke quickly ran over and grabbed me to try to hold me back.  
"Take it easy, Miyako!"

"I knew I shouldn't get in the way of your teamwork. This was all just a big mistake on my part." Osamu sighed.  
"Onii-san…" Ken muttered as Osamu started to walk away.  
"Let's go, Monodramon."  
"Osamu-chan…" Monodramon didn't sound like he wanted to leave but he followed him all the same.  
"Ichijouji-san…" Both Daisuke and I said.  
"Wait, Onii-san…!" Ken picked up Wormmon and started to chase after him, but he quickly stopped to look at me with a very upset look on his face. "Miyako-san…" He then sighed himself and the look vanished before he turned back around to chase after his brother. I just growled in anger at Osamu and Iori being so hard-headed.  
"Iori…" Armadimon looked at him with a disappointed look on his face.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Back at the cliff, Mummymon had moved away the bathtub and now replaced it with a massage table that Archnemon laid on while he proceeded to give her a massage. However, Archnemon's mind was still focused on the biggest threat to the grand plan she and Mummymon had: the continually interference of the Chosen Children. If things kept up, if the Dark Towers continued to be destroyed in the numbers they were; the whole plan would be ruined.  
"To defeat the Chosen Children… I have to create a powerful Digimon… Lower." She ordered Mummymon who complied. "With one Dark Tower… I'm able to create an Adult-Level Digimon like Tortamon or Golemon… With ten Dark Towers… I can create a Perfect-Level Digimon like Okuwamon… but they still lost… even when they had the advantage… they still lost." An idea soon popped into her head. "To defeat the Chosen Children, I may need one hundred Dark Towers…"  
 _"Using a hundred Dark Towers means Archnemon would have to pull out a hundred hairs."_ Mummymon thought to himself. _"If Archnemon lost a hundred hairs…"_

When she noticed him not massaging her anymore, she gave him an angry look.  
"What are you thinking!?" She grabbed him once more and threw him off the cliff where he crashed into a Dark Tower and slid down it to the forest below. "I swear…" Back on the forest floor, Mummymon pulled himself back up.  
"The worse she treats me, instead of pain, I feel happiness… Could it be I'm falling in love with Archnemon…?" A moment later, he hears the sound of the Dune Buggy being turned on and it's motor revving.  
"Mummymon, what are you doing? We're leaving." She shouted down at him.  
"Y… yes!" He quickly got back up at full attention before he got back up the cliff and into the car. The two of them drive across the desert before reaching the top of a rocky mountain covered in Dark Towers. The two of them both gain an evil grin upon seeing the place. Archnemon takes a bunch of her hair and puts it into her mouth like she was about to cut them with her teeth.  
"To defeat the Chosen Children… To destroy the Digital World… A wonderful Digital Monster…" She jumped up and her hair shot out like they were wings. "ARISE!"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We came back with everyone's drinks but it quickly turned out that something bad had happened while we were gone. Iori was with Armadimon with a down look on his face as they sat on top of a large rock. He continued to stare at the bottle of relaxing tea we gave him as Miyako and Daisuke finished explaining things to me and Hikari.  
"So that's what happened…" I said.  
"Why can't they be more sincere?" Miyako wondered.  
"I can't say I don't understand how Iori-kun feels, but…" admitted Hikari. We all sighed as Daisuke took a sip of his drink followed by the rest of us.  
"Iori… and Ichijouji-san… They just need to grow up a bit." Somehow, as soon as Daisuke said that, we all suddenly choked on our drinks. "You think so too, huh?" We all had to quickly cough after that. "What? Did I say something weird?" As soon as we stopped coughing, we heard the sound of an engine and quickly put on a serious face. "Did I offend you guys…?" Daisuke still was unaware. A car approached and slid on its breaks… to reveal Archnemon and Mummymon driving. "What's wrong with you all? You're all quiet…"  
"Daisuke-kun, behind you." He turned around and after a short gasp, he got serious as well.

"So this is your little hangout." Archnemon chuckled with a very sinister tone to it.  
"So what?" Daisuke shouted back at her.  
"What do you want?" I angrily questioned.  
"Well, I thought I'd bring my new Digimon to play with you."  
"Don't you get tired of it? You always lose to us!" Miyako pointed out.  
"This time… I wonder!" She sounded very confident now. It turns out she had reason to as Iori loudly gasped in fear. The whole ground began to rock as Archnemon and Mummymon hopped back into their car and drove away. We soon found the reason why Iori was so frightened as all the Dark Towers in the area slowly began to rise up. "Follow me, kids!" She taunted as the towers began to explode into data.

"Daisuke!" V-mon cried and got his attention.  
"Right!"  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" Our Digimon tried to evolve as fast as they could as the towers disintegrated.  
"Digimental Up!" I shouted.  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"  
"Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!"  
"Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!"  
"Digimental Up!" Hikari shouted.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"  
"Let's go, guys!" Daisuke charged ahead. The rest of us nodded and followed him.

"Full of energy as usual, huh?" Archnemon taunted once more. The mountain up ahead began to have a reverse tornado of black energy swarming around it. "But… it will soon turn into fear!"  
"Iori!" Daisuke and Miyako shouted at him as he ran past them.  
"Daisuke-san, Miyako-san! This looks different from the other times! I have a bad feeling about this… Takeru-san, Hikari-san!" Iori yelled out at us as we flew on Pegasmon and Nefertimon towards the mountain. "You're getting too close!" A large shadow began to form before us… and it looked oddly familiar. Suddenly a burst of a dark wind struck us and sent us back down towards the ground. We hit really hard and slid across the hard ground.  
"Hikari-chan!" "Takeru-kun!" Daisuke and Miyako called out for us. The shadow receded until it materialized… into a form Hikari and I knew all too well.  
"That's…" Pegasmon groaned. "Black…"  
"Black… WarGreymon…" Nefertimon moaned.

Upon closer inspection, they were right. BlackWarGreymon looked exactly like WarGreymon but with a black color scheme and yellow hair. We heard it loudly groaning before it's eyes flashed and screamed out in anger.  
"But that's… impossible…" I struggled to say in pain as my body was screaming at me that it was in pain from the landing. I was slowly losing consciousness.  
"No… it can't be BlackWarGreymon…" Hikari muttered as she passed out and I followed suit.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"What should we do, Ankylomon?" XV-mon asked as the three Digimon stared down the new Dark Tower Digimon.  
"You have to ask? We protect the kids, dagyaa."  
"That is all we can do." Aquilamon added. The three of them charged forward once more as BlackWarGreymon growled and shot forward like a missile. He rammed XV-mon in the chest before head-butting him to the ground. He then quickly turned and slashed Aquilamon in the face. Ankylomon ran over to XV-mon but BlackWarGreymon charged down and tackled them away. Archnemon just laughed.  
"Wh… what strength…" Daisuke was as dumb founded as the rest of us.  
"At this rate, everyone will…" I didn't even want to finish saying what I was thinking.  
"Only Paildramon and MechaRaptormon can beat him!" Miyako informed. "We have to call Ken-kun, Ross-san and Ichijouji-san!" She pulled out her D-Terminal and found a message from Ross. "'Here in the Digital World, where you guys need me?'" She read to us. She quickly sent a message back to Ken who was still probably with Osamu. "'He says he doesn't want to get in the way of our teamwork.'" Ken quickly replied back.

"It's not the time to worry about the damn teamwork!" roared Daisuke. I growled upon hearing all that.  
"We'll fight by ourselves!" I declared.  
"Iori!"  
"Cut it out, you two!" Miyako stood up. "I'll tell Ross-san to go where they are and meet up with him so we can bring them back. Aquilamon!"  
"Miyako-san!" She ran towards him.  
"I'll be back with them! Until then, hang in there!"  
"My BlackWarGreymon… His strength is so charming…" Sounds like Archnemon was extremely proud of what she just created.  
"Indeed." Mummymon observed as we watched out poor Digimon get absolutely destroyed.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

I followed Osamu until we ended up in this large area of building sized rock that were different colors and had many holes like they were cheese. After we destroyed a few Dark Towers in the area, we stayed put. It was only a few minutes ago that we got the message from Miyako but Osamu just wanted to stay.  
"Onii-san, shouldn't we go?" I asked him.  
"Where?"  
"Don't act dumb! The others called us for a reason!" He looked away from me.  
"Me and your friends…"  
"Ken-kun!" "Osamu!" We both heard Miyako and Ross' voices as they both approached us on Aquilamon and Waibanmon.  
"Miyako-san?" "Ross-kun?" We questioned.  
"Come quickly! Archnemon made an incredibly strong Digimon!" She explained to us.  
"Osamu-chan!" Strikedramon tried to get his attention.  
"From the sounds of it, it'll take Paildramon and MechaRaptormon to beat this thing." Ross said. We all looked at him before he finally got up.  
"Miyako-kun, Ross-kun, I'm sorry but…" Ross jumped off of Waibanmon and landed right next to Osamu… before he decked him in the face once more.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

I swear, I think Ross nearly dislocated my jaw when he hit me this time. I was riding with him on Waibanmon while Stingmon and Aquilamon flew next to us with Strikedramon in Aquilamon's talons. Ross quickly gave me a whole speech about how I was being stupid with my actions. That if I wanted to atone for my mistakes, this whole 'I'm not good enough for the others' attitude needed to stop. I suppose he was right about that… guess a quick knock to the jaw makes me more likely to listen.  
"Everyone is fighting for their lives against BlackWarGreymon!" Miyako insisted.  
"Wait?! Did you say BlackWarGreymon?!" Ross questioned as we soon reached the others and saw them taking a beating.  
"Hang in there! I'm sure Stingmon will come!" Ankylomon informed XV-mon was lying on the ground in pain.  
"Yeah…" XV-mon slowly got back up.  
"BlackWarGreymon! Go, finish them off!" Archnemon ordered. The devastating monster soon held Ankylomon over his head.  
"It's an order from Archnemon, who created you!" Mummymon informed.

"Daisuke!" Miyako shouted as we flew over them. "I brought them here!"  
"Ken!" Daisuke wave at him.  
"Daisuke!" I looked over to Ross and nodded. He did the same. Our Digivices all then glowed once more.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!" Ross and myself quickly got on the ground while Ken hopped on Aquilamon as our Digimon merged and soon charged towards the Dark Tower Digimon.  
"Those two have been giving me a really hard time!" Archnemon shouted at her monster. "BlackWarGreymon, let's get our revenge!"  
"Esgrima!" "Metallic Swipe!" Both our Digimon flew forward, with MechaRaptormon's cannon and claws glowing. All three collided and push each other back.  
"He's clearly different from the Digimon Archnemon created so far." Paildramon noticed.  
"Then we'll fight with all our strength!" declared MechaRaptormon.

"Desperado Blaster!" "Howitzer Blast!" Both attacks slammed at him… but when the dust cleared… he wasn't even scratched.  
"What!?" They both shouted.  
"Even the two of them can't…" Miyako muttered.  
"It can't be…" Ken said. We all were in shock about this. BlackWarGreymon began to growl as his eyes glowed white.  
"Everyone, run!" Hikari screamed before he roared and everything went white.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Ugh… not… dead… yet… My body was in pain and I was barely hanging on to consciousness as I saw BlackWarGreymon slowly walk towards our beaten up Baby Digimon. A quick check around showed that I was the only one still awake after the blast as everyone else was near their Digimon and covered in dust and bruises. This is just great… this is how it all ends… we've got nothing to stop him at this moment.  
"Good job, BlackWarGreymon." Archnemon congratulated. "I have plenty of work for you. First… finish off those insufferable annoyances and then go out and destroy the Digital World!" There was no response. BlackWarGreymon just stood there.  
"What's wrong, BlackWarGreymon?" Mummymon asked. "It's an order from Archnemon, who created you! Tear out the hearts of those children and their Digimon then destroy everything she tells you!"  
"I don't take orders from anyone." BlackWarGreymon spoke up. If I could guess, he sounded like Olin Garn from X-Wing Alliance if that voice actor was speaking Japanese.  
"What?" Both Archnemon and Mummymon were taken aback from his sign of rebellion.  
"You also look weak. You're not suitable opponents to fight, much less take orders from. I'll look for someone stronger." He then took off.

"Archnemon!" Mummymon shouted as she practically passed out from the shock of her creation resisting her. Mummymon quickly caught her. "Archnemon… are you okay?" She quickly got back up and punched him in the gut.  
"What are you thinking!?" She then bit her thumb. "BlackWarGreymon… Well, what are you waiting for? After him!"  
"But… the Chosen…"  
"Forget about them for now! No Dark Tower Digimon I create defies me!" The two of them sped away and left us along. God, I don't know how BlackWarGreymon fits into your divine plan… but at least I thank you for making him rebel against Archnemon and keeping us alive once again.

Still, even if he isn't taking orders from Archnemon, BlackWarGreymon has just became a titanic threat to the Digital World…

* * *

These kids just can't catch a break, can they?

Anyways, I've got nothing more to say this time so take care.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	37. Storm of Love! Silphymon!

Got this one out quicker than I have lately.

Shoutout to **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , **Whiteling** , and **GreenD109** for the reviews. Oh, and Whiteling… in response to your quote: Thank you for the heads up there, Hagrid.

Anyways, it's late and I want to post this before Midnight PST.

* * *

 **Chapter 36: Storm of Love! Silphymon!**

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 8th, 2002. 1500 Hours._

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

It's been a couple of days since we iced our wounds against BlackWarGreymon. There was good news and bad news to it all. The good news was that he wasn't taking Archnemon's orders and didn't finish us off. It also added to the fact that witch was now more focused on getting him back rather than wrecking the Digital World. The bad news was that BlackWarGreymon was still an uncontrollable beast and it he was causing some damage himself. Anything that got in his way, he absolutely wrecked and his fearful reputation was very quickly spreading.

For us Chosen Children, our plans were quickly changing around him. Most of the older Chosen Children had now returned their Digimon back to the Digital World to keep tabs on both Archnemon and BlackWarGreymon. We'd rotate them out so some Digimon were staying home with their partners while others were keeping an eye on things, but it still didn't change the fact that we had nothing to combat the Ultimate Dark Tower Digimon. All we can do right now is keep an eye on him… and hope that maybe Archnemon pushes him and ends up getting killed at the hands of her own creation. That's a bit of irony that I would love to see. The door soon opened up and the others came before I sat down in the corner and decided to take a quick nap. I kinda fried my brain with that history exam earlier. I know I answered more than I was supposed to, but hey, it doesn't hurt to get extra credit.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

In a large thick forest in the Digital World, all was fairly quiet for the Digimon there until a loud rumbling slowly approached. The Digimon quickly took cover as two trees were quickly cut down. The culprit was BlackWarGreymon who was slowly walking his way through. He quickly turned his head when he saw a Kuwagamon cowering up behind a tree. The reputation that he had earned was certainly becoming of him. An unstoppable warrior of destruction that would easily crush any that stood in his way. The Ultimate Digimon turned his head back forward as he ignored the scared beetle. He just continued on his way, looking for whatever challenger to fight and give him the satisfaction of a worthy opponent.

In the desert not too far behind, Archnemon and Mummymon were in their Dune Buggy and keeping a distant chase with the rogue Digimon. Archnemon was still upset about it all. Here she had created the perfect Digimon to destroy both the Chosen Children and the Digital World and yet at the greatest moment, the thing tells her off and then flies away to look for some worthy challenge.  
"He's creating a distortion wherever he goes. We'll know where he is if we follow these tracks." Mummymon told her as he looked to a radar screen on the dashboard. It was red dot following a black one with a large red wave behind it.  
"Just where is he going?" Archnemon wondered about her creation.  
"If we knew, there wouldn't be a problem…"  
"How can you be so relaxed? Speed up!"  
"Alright, alright…" Mummymon complied and hit the gas, causing more dust to kick up behind them… while Guilmon poked his head out from behind a rock he hid behind.  
"Certainly on the move right now…"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

As we got to the Headquarters, Ross swiftly got up from the computer, gave us a few words before he nodded off in the corner. We quickly went back to the main issue at hand.  
"BlackWarGreymon…" Takeru mutter, that name really getting on everyone's nerves now.  
"I still can't believe that Paildramon and MechaRaptormon couldn't beat him." Daisuke said.  
"He's an Ultimate Digimon, it can't be helped." Tailmon tried to assure him. Of course, that doesn't really help us as we don't really have any Digimon who could properly fight him anymore. Agumon and Gabumon can't evolve to WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon to combat him, or even Omegamon who could probably easily defeat him. "Even if I could reach Perfect-Level, I'd stand no chance." Tailmon gave a quick reminded as well.

"If we had two… no, one more Jogress Evolution, we might stand a chance against him." suggested Takeru, of course, those are still some long odds.  
"You all have to hurry and Jogress-Evolve!" Chibimon shouted.  
"Drop the attitude, wise guy." Daisuke rolled his eyes which caused Chibimon to chuckle.  
"But… he makes a good point." Patamon nodded upon that suggestion. "I wonder who my partner is."  
"If we knew, we could practice." Poromon said as I walked over to one of the few windows in the warehouse.  
"Right, dagyaa!" Upamon cried.  
"In any case… It has to be someone here." Tailmon put her paw over her mouth in deep thought.  
"Here?" "Someone…" Poromon and Patamon joined in the thinking.  
"Still, I can't believe he ignored that spider woman." Miyako was remembering what Ross told us when BlackWarGreymon defeated us.  
"That means he will be difficult to deal with." Iori scratched his chin.

"I wonder where he's going, all alone…" I finally said something which drew everyone's attention. "BlackWarGreymon… he's like a Digimon born only to fight." I continued as I stared out the window. I hate to admit it, but I did actually feel sorry for him.  
"Hikari-chan, you're worried about BlackWarGreymon?" Miyako questioned.  
"It's not that, but…"  
"Hikari-chan is really nice, unlike you, Miyako." Daisuke gave her a small insult.  
"What's that about?" She angrily turned her head back to look at him.  
"What?"  
"Calm down!" mediated Takeru. "Anyway, let's go to the Digital World. We can't let them create another Digimon like that."  
"Yeah! We're going to take all those Dark Towers down! Right, Hikari-chan?"  
"Yes…" I reluctantly nodded.  
"Let's go, Daisuke!" Chibimon jumped on his arm.  
"Yeah!"

After a message from Guilmon about where both BlackWarGreymon and Archnemon were, we soon ended up in a pretty dark forest and were just walking through it; following the path that BlackWarGreymon had taken.  
 _"_ _Yeah, I'm really different from Hikari-chan. She keeps so much inside…"_ Miyako thought to herself. _"That's why I have no clue what she's thinking sometimes."_ After walking for what honestly felt like a mile, Tailmon suddenly stopped and looked around.  
"Tailmon?" I tried to get her attention.  
"It's here!" She shouted to the group. "This is where I lost my Holy Ring!"  
"Your Holy Ring?" I quickly repeated.  
"I'm sure."  
"At the time I lost it when being attacked by that Unimon; I couldn't look for it because the Digimon Kaiser was on the loose. With my Holy Ring, I may be able to get my original powers back."

"Okay! Let's look for it, then!" Daisuke hurriedly spoke up.  
"Daisuke-kun…" I smiled at him, which cause Iori and Miyako to give him smug smiles too.  
"Trying to score some points with Hikari-san?" Iori snidely said.  
"You're so predictable, Daisuke." Miyako teased which caused him to go red faced.  
"Well, I'm sorry!" He angrily shouted. V-mon lightly nudged him in the leg.  
"Don't give up, Daisuke." He whispered which made Daisuke pick him up near the neck and shake him.  
"V-mon…!" I giggled when I saw that.

"But Daisuke-kun is right. Let's look for it." Takeru agreed with Patamon nodding.  
"Let's get to it." "We'll find it for sure, dagyaa!" Hawkmon and Armadimon chimed in.  
"Thank you… everyone." Tailmon was extremely thankful for our offer.  
"Well, Hikari-chan…" Daisuke walked past me.  
"I'll look for it with Miyako-san." I didn't let him finish and walked away from him. Miyako looked slightly confused as I took her arm. "Let's check over there. Daisuke sounded defeated as V-mon nudged him again.  
"Don't give up, Daisuke." He repeated and got the same result as before.  
"V-mon…!"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"I have a bad feeling about this place…" Wormmon shivered as Osamu and I entered the forest. We were also trying to follow BlackWarGreymon like the others so when Guilmon told us the others were in the area, we agreed to join them.  
"You're right, Wormmon… something's not right about this forest." Monodramon added. I looked over to Osamu who was staring ahead into the forest.  
"Onii-san… you okay?" He said nothing as he looked around. He took another glance forward before he gasped and widened his eyes. He looked completely gripped with fear before he closed his eyes and screamed.  
"Osamu-chan!" "Onii-san, what's wrong!?"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"It's not here…" Hawkmon observed from a large broken branch.  
"I think it was around here…" Tailmon strongly believed. The sound of a familiar scream soon rang out across the forest.  
"Ichijouji-san?" I questioned to myself. I soon took off running towards the sound where I thought I heard him from.  
"Hikari-chan?" Miyako was confused and chased after me with our Digimon. "Hikari-chan! Where are you going?"  
"Didn't you hear it? Ichijouji-san's voice!"  
"Osamu-san's?" We turned a corner in the woods and found Osamu on his knees groaning in agony which his head clutched while Monodramon, Ken and Wormmon were looking at him.

"What's wrong?" I asked as I kneeled down to Osamu.  
"Did something appear? BlackWarGreymon?" Miyako questioned once more.  
"No, he just screamed out and fell on his knees!" Ken informed as he turned his attention right back to his brother.  
"The ocean…" Osamu muttered. "I saw the ocean… a dark ocean…" My blood went cold as soon as he said that.  
"A dark… ocean…" I slowly repeated. The terrible memories began flooding back once more.  
"A dark ocean…? It is dark here, but…" Miyako was confused.  
"I don't think there's really any water around here." Ken didn't understand either. Osamu took a deep breath and got back up on his feet.  
"I'm sorry… I'm okay now…"  
"Fine? You can barely stand!" countered Miyako as Ken took his shoulder and became a crutch for him. "Seriously, seeing the ocean in the middle of the forest…" She grumbled as we all walked away.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"It's not here." Iori informed as we looked hard in the area for Tailmon's Holy Ring.  
"Should we look somewhere else?" I suggested. Daisuke sighed.  
"Yeah, let's do that." He then pulled out his D-3. "I wonder where Hikari-chan and the rest are. Hey, what's going on here?" I checked my D-3 and found four different colored dots beginning to fade out on the screen. My heart sank as I saw that.  
"Something happened to them!" I ran as fast as I could where they were.  
"Hey, Takeru!" The others tried to catch up with me.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

As we walked down hill, I notice that the forest was getting even darker. Though, the clouds above us were darker so that would explain it. Of course… it also feels like this area was really familiar.  
"Do you feel like we were here a while ago?" I looked around.  
"We may have gotten lost in all this foliage." believed Tailmon.  
"No way! Wait a second!" Miyako loudly panicked. "Are we just going to end up rotting here!?"  
"Take it easy, Miyako-san. It'll be okay, I'm sure." Ken quickly tried to help her. Both of them soon made a 'huh' noise as they looked deeper into the woods.  
"Daisuke!" Miyako exclaimed.  
"V-mon!" Hawkmon chimed in as well.  
"See, what did I tell you?" Ken smiled as Miyako waved.  
"Daisuke!" "V-mon!" Daisuke looked over our direction and Miyako and Hawkmon ran over to him with the rest of us following her as he ran towards us.

However, something was wrong when Daisuke just ran right through her causing her to stop with her eyes wide open. Hawkmon landed and V-mon did the same to him. The two of them then ran past the rest of us before stopping in a small clearing.  
"That's odd… I thought I heard a voice." Daisuke looked around.  
"Daisuke-kun…" I muttered.  
"I heard it too." V-mon said before the two of them ran off again.  
"Daisuke!" "Motomiya-kun!" Ken and Osamu tried to call him as he ran out of our view.  
"Hikari-chan! Miyako!" He called out as he ran a different direction.  
"Looks like we ended up in some strange place…" I came to a conclusion for the strange incident.  
"No way!" Miyako moaned.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"Did you find Hikari-chan and the others?" Daisuke asked as we all quickly regrouped.  
"They're nowhere to be found." Iori explained.  
"We looked all over and couldn't find them!" Patamon added.  
"Where'd they disappear to, dagyaa?" Armadimon wondered. I had my suspicions… but I really hope I'm wrong.  
"Patamon, evolve and we'll search from the sky." I told him.  
"Okay."  
"V-mon, we'll evolve too." Daisuke turned to his partner.  
"Right!"  
"Armadimon." Iori looked to the armadillo Digimon.  
"Gotcha, dagyaa!"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"The fog is getting thicker." Osamu observed as we kept walking. I sadly was getting a pretty good idea of where we were now, but I pray to God I'm wrong for this.  
"Hey, how about we sing a song?" Miyako tried to keep up our spirits, but none of us answered her. "Then, how about a word game?" We still said nothing. "Oh, I know! Let's play cards!" She suddenly realized that there was a key thing missing to that idea. "But we didn't bring any cards! Silly me!" She nervously chuckled.  
"Miyako-san… let's just… let's just keep walking and stay quiet okay?" Ken kindly asked.  
"We may not be going anywhere or be able to go back at this rate." Osamu expressed some dark doubts. I looked over to him.  
"Don't worry. As long as we want to go back and someone wants us back, we'll be able to get out of this world." I told him as I tried to keep up hope. Osamu looked back at me and give me a small smile.

"Hikari-chan." Miyako stopped and we turned to look at her. I saw she had a very upset look on her face and it was directed at me. "You're making fun of me, aren't you?" What?  
"Of course not…" I defended. I would never do that to her. Tease her, joke around with her, I sometimes do that but I would never be mean like make fun of her.  
"You are." She clearly doesn't want to hear my answer.  
"I'm not making fun of you." I insisted.  
"I know you are!" She huffed and walked past us down the hill.  
"Miyako-san…" As she walked a bit in a stern look, I saw up ahead her shoulders slump.  
"I did it again… And at a time like this…"  
"You did go a bit too far." informed Hawkmon.

She soon came to a stop up ahead.  
"Aah, look what I got. It's a dead end…" She looked down. "Huh?" I guess she noticed something. "Hey, isn't that the Holy Ring?" We all quickened our pace and caught up with her.  
"The Holy Ring?" I questioned as I looked down a long, black gorge.  
"I see it… but it's hard to tell from up here." Ken noticed.  
"What do you think, Tailmon?" I asked her.  
"I don't know…" She answer. Ken was right, it's too hard to tell from here.  
 _"_ _Holy Ring…? I've seen it somewhere before… I had it in my hands. But I can't really remember what happened afterwards…"_ thought Osamu.

"Well, I'm gonna take a look." Miyako slowly started to climb down.  
"Miyako-san, I'll go." Hawkmon tried to get her to reconsider.  
"It's fine, it's fine."  
"Don't push yourself, Miyako-san." I said to her.  
"It's fine, it's fine…" She repeated before a rock she stepped on gave out on her and she fell! I swiftly grabbed her hand. She looked to me with quite a relived look on her face. "Thanks… Hikari-chan…"  
"Miyako-san, are you okay?" Ken and Osamu tried to help me before my eyes widened as I saw that ocean crash against the gorge. Everything soon happened so fast. Ken turned his attention away from us as Osamu suddenly screamed while I let go of the cliff and fell with Miyako. Our Digimon jumped after us as everything went black.

As I woke up, I found that we had landed on a ledge and many of our old wounds and bruises caused from the BlackWarGreymon fight opened up again. I dealt with them as best as I could before trying wake up Miyako.  
"Miyako-san… Miyako-san?" Her eyes began to open.  
"Hikari-chan!" She exclaimed as she sat up.  
"What a relief… are you hurt?"  
"I'm fine." She claimed. "Where are we? Right, I was trying to get the Holy Ring…"  
"That's what you get for being so reckless." Hawkmon scolded.  
"Seems like this was caught." Tailmon showed her a broken Evil Ring. Turns out that's what we saw.  
"An Evil Ring…" Miyako looked disappointed with herself. "It wasn't the Holy Ring…"  
"Still, I appreciate your concern, Miyako. Thanks." Tailmon smiled at her.  
"Tailmon…"

"Let's hurry out of here." I turned our attention back to the problem at hand.  
"Right. Hawkmon, evolve!"  
"Understood. Hawkmon, evolve!" Nothing… He didn't evolve at all. Oh, this is not good.  
"What are you doing?"  
"Huh? Strange…" Hawkmon suddenly realized that nothing happened. "I can't evolve."  
"Ehh!?" Looks like Miyako is about to panic again. "Why can't you evolve!? How are we going to get out then? Are we going to be stuck here forever?"  
"Miyako-san…" Hawkmon tried to calm her down.  
"Even if we get out, we'll still be lost in this forest!"  
"Miyako…" Now it was Tailmon's turn.  
"Daisuke even walked right through me!"  
"Miyako-san…" I said.  
"Aaah! It's over! We're finished! My life is going to end here!" Something in me finally snapped and I just had to get her to stop… and I slapped her in the face.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

She slapped me. Kind, sweet, always thinking of others Hikari just slapped me. I was in complete shock.  
"I'm sorry…" She immediately apologized to me.  
"Yeah, me too…" I rubbed my face to relive some of the pain as I guess I was kind of losing it.  
"I'll go look for something we may be able to use as a rope." Hawkmon told us.  
"Wait for us." Tailmon also planned to help. The two soon went back up the cliff while we just sat here on this ledge.  
"Miyako-san, you're a handful sometimes." Hikari admitted to me.  
"I knew that's what you thought of me…"  
"But… I've always envied that." Come again? Envied? Why would you want to envy me about that? "Because I can't be honest and say I'm scared or scream like you."  
"Hikari-chan…"  
"Maybe that's why I get trapped in the Dark World…"  
"Dark World?"  
"I don't want to go there… but I can't avoid it." We were soon interrupted by a large vine that fell in front of us.  
"Miyako-san!" "Hikari!" Hawkmon and Tailmon shouted.

"We're finally out…" I nearly cried as we climbed back out.  
"I'm sorry, you two. I lost focus for a moment and then…" Ken tried to apologize.  
"Um… actually…" Osamu spoke up. "It was my fault. I'm sorry I couldn't help…" He said.  
"No, don't worry. You don't like dark places, so…" I guessed what caused his problem. "If you had fallen, it could have been a disaster, with you screaming and all." He looked a bit more guilty. "Ah, but you were once the Digimon Kaiser, so you have the guts, right?"  
"Uh, Miyako-san!" Ken cleared his throat as Osamu had even more of a guilty look on his face.  
"Oops… Did I make you remember something you didn't want to? Oh, right, the thing that was stuck wasn't the Holy Ring, but an Evil Ring! Misleading, huh? I can't believe it was an Evil Ring… Ah, but I'm not trying to make you feel bad." Ken's face was just a mess, he looked like he was about to yell at me for… okay, maybe I should've stuck my foot in my mouth a bit sooner. Hikari began to giggle. "Don't laugh, Hikari-chan!"  
"But…"  
"I guess it is funny." I then joined in with her chuckling while Ken just calmed down and Osamu's guilty look went away.

The laughter was soon stopped when Hikari gasped as something clearly caused her to stop. She stood back up and looked towards another direction.  
"Hikari-chan? What's wrong?"  
"I can hear it… the sound of the waves." She took off running towards the direction she was looking.  
"Hikari-chan?" "Hikari-kun!" Ken and I called out to her before following. She eventually came to a stop at another cliff.  
"I knew it…" She muttered. "The ocean. They called me here… Again…"  
"Hikari!" "Hikari-chan!" "Hikari-kun!" We caught up with her.  
"You're right, it's the ocean…" Osamu agreed with her.  
"Ocean? I can't see the ocean anywhere." I looked ahead to the large valley of dark trees.  
"I mean, it's an ocean of trees… but I don't see any water which you two are probably referring to." Ken agreed with me.

"Why does this ocean keep calling Hikari?" Tailmon growled. "What is out there?"  
"Hikari-kun has come to this ocean too?" Osamu questioned. "So it wasn't just me…?"  
"Both Hikari-chan…" I said.  
"And Onii-san…" Ken finished my sentence.  
"Why can't I see it!?" I shouted. All of a sudden, the trees slowly vanished and revealed a large, dark ocean. "Uh, Ken-kun, do you…?"  
"Yeah… I see it now too, Miyako-san."  
"Something's not right… it's like the world is distorted." claimed Osamu.  
"Is it because the force that protects the Digital World is weakening?" I suggested. Osamu quickly looked at me in shock. "That's what Izumi-senpai told us the other day."  
"The force that protects the Digital World…"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Mummymon and Archnemon were driving along a road that went through the forest and was highlighted by a long line of Dark Towers. The evil woman looked over to the cliff and saw the four humans and their partners looking distorted.  
"Oh? Those kids sure are stupid… They got into a distorted world. Keep driving."  
"What?" Mummymon questioned. "Shouldn't we take this opportunity to kill them?"  
"Tempting… but I'm more concerned with BlackWarGreymon at the moment. Still, you're right, we shouldn't let this chance go to waste." She pulled out ten of her hairs and let them fly towards the Dark Towers. "I'll leave this to you!" She shouted back at the monster she created and left do deal with the lost children.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Hikari fell to her knees and grabbed her head.  
"I don't want to be here…" She cried.  
"Hikari, hang in there!" encouraged Tailmon.  
"I want to go home!"  
"Don't worry. We'll go home for sure!" I tried to be positive for her. A loud roaring noise soon erupted behind us. We turned around and saw a large blue eye staring at us. "What's that!?" It soon quickly revealed a large plant Digimon.  
"That's a Blossomon!" Ken shouted and then I remembered that fight that Takeru and Koushiro had gotten into towards the end of our fight with Osamu. A bright light broke out behind the large Blossomon.  
"I can see the forest behind that opening!" Monodramon yelled.  
"Now, Miyako-san." Hawkmon turned to me as the light came over us.  
"Yeah. You may be able to evolve now!"  
"Wormmon!"  
"Leave it to me!"  
"Monodramon!"  
"Just give me the word, Osamu-chan!"

"Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" "Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!"  
"Hikari!" Tailmon now turned to her partner who held up her D-3… however, Blossomon roared and fear clearly hit Hikari which caused her to drop her D-3 and grab her head again.  
"Nooo!" She screamed.  
"Hikari!"  
"Hikari-chan!" I looked over to her as our Digimon moved to fight Blossomon.  
"No… stop it…" Hikari whimpered. "Don't take me away!" She begged.  
"Hikari-chan!" I shake her shoulders to try to snap her out of this.  
"Strike Claw!" "Spiking Finish!" "Glide Horn!" The Digimon attacked but were quickly knocked back.  
"Stingmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Aquilamon!" The Ichijouji brothers and I called out for our Digimon.  
"Hikari-chan! Snap out of it!" I shout.  
"I hear the voice of the darkness… The darkness is swallowing me… It's over!" I snapped and did the same thing she did to me to earlier when I was breaking down; I slapped her.

"Get a hold of yourself!" I yelled. "If you hear the voice of the darkness, I'll scream! If the darkness is swallowing you, I'll grab your hands and bring you back! You're my best friend Hikari-chan! I'm not going to ever give up on you!" I took her hands. "So don't say it's over!"  
"Miyako-san…" She slowly began to calm back down. She then gave me a kind smile. "Thank you." A bright light from above soon began shining down upon us. "Light?" She questioned.  
"Yeah. Because you're the light. You're the light that shines through the dark!"  
"Miyako is right, Hikari." Tailmon said. Hikari and I looked at each other again and smiled before our D-3s began to glow and so did Tailmon and Aquilamon did too. We quickly realized what it all meant.  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress-Evolve! SILPHYMON!"

Silphymon was quite the impressive looking Digimon. She was just about the height of a normal human female with a similar body shape, though that's where things kinda ended. She had Aquilamon like legs, large white arms with power claws for hands and long feathers across her forearms. Finally, she had a human like face that was covered by a large metal visor.  
"Tailmon and…" Hikari began to speak.  
"…Aquilamon…" I interrupted her.  
"…Jogress-Evolved?" Ken and Osamu finished our sentence. Silphymon took a step forward towards Blossomon.  
"It's a Dark Tower Digimon, I know it." Her voice was an amalgamation of Tailmon and Aquilamon. "Yes. Let's defeat it." Blossomon's four large vines with teeth shot forward before Silphymon motioned her hands and a large ball of energy formed in it. "Top Gun!" She threw out the attack and destroyed the vines before striking Blossomon; destroying the Dark Tower Digimon as well.

After the massive burst of energy, the forest around us began turning back to normal as the light returned, indicating that we did it and were back in the true Digital World. Silphymon glowed once more and devolved back into two Digimon. One was a small dog, the other was like Poromon but like a newborn bird without it's feathers.  
"Plotmon!" Hikari said as the dog ran over to her.  
"That there is Pururumon, Miyako." Plotmon explained as I went over to pick him up; extremely proud of what he just did.

"Silphymon?" Iori questioned as we finished explaining everything to the others once they found us.  
"I see! So Hikari-chan's Jogress partner was Miyako!" Guessing Daisuke was a little relieved to discover that; I would've loved to seen his reaction if it was Takeru and not me as her Jogress partner.  
"Well, I think we'll be going now." Osamu said as he turned around and walked away.  
"If you don't mind, Onii-san, I'll stay with the others for a bit longer." Ken told him which cause Osamu to wave in a way of saying 'Got it.'  
"I think I understand Osamu-san a little better now." I spoke up before turning back to Hikari. "And… Hikari-chan too." She looked up to see Takeru with a hurt look on his face.  
"I thought you had gone to some unknown world again… that I lost you for good this time." He whispered that last part so Daisuke couldn't hear but I did… though I didn't bother him about it. Hikari shook her head to his fears.  
"I'm fine now. I'll never go there again." She looked over to me before turning back to Takeru. "Never again."

Yeah, that's right; as long as we're together as a team, that won't happen again, Hikari...

* * *

Well, I wouldn't say never, Hikari... thought that depends what the upcoming movie next year does.

I've got nothing more to truly add to this one so all of you take care.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	38. Mysterious Ruins! The Holy Stone!

Another day, another chapter. Just keep cranking these things along. Sorry if this one is a bit different, the main focus for this one is a third person character.

Shoutouts to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **Whiteling** for the continual reviews. You guys keep the story going.

Anyways, let's keep it going.

* * *

 **Chapter 37: Mysterious Ruins! The Holy Stone!**

 _Digital World. October 12th, 2002. 1054 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A violent sandstorm was kicking up in the desert as BlackWarGreymon just continued on his journey to find someone strong to fight with. He had already left a wake of destruction behind him; the wrecked Dark Towers and strong Digimon whose bodies were practically broken were a clear sign. The Tuskmon, Monochromon, and DarkTyranomon were just unfortunately in his way and paid for it with pain. Even with all the Digimon attacking him, BlackWarGreymon still wasn't satisfied.  
"Isn't there anyone?" He questioned to himself as he just kept walking ahead. "Where are the worthy opponents?" He walked a bit further towards some rocky cliffs that peppered the area before he found a massive horde of Mammon in front of him. The twenty mammoths all blew their noses like they were elephants; indicating they were wanting a fight with him. BlackWarGreymon just looked at them without having much thought to them except for only one question… where did they all come from? He quickly figured out the answer when he looked up and saw Archnemon and Mummymon on a cliff looking down at him.

"Now, come back to us quietly!" The spider woman ordered, even though they were in their human disguises.  
"You sure are putting up a fight…" Mummymon growled. "We had to use two hundred valuable Dark Towers to make these! Two hundred!" That confirmed BlackWarGreymon's question about where the Mammon horde came from. They were all Dark Tower Digimon.  
"Interesting. They may be worthy opponents." He taunted his former creators. However, he knew that all of them were only created from ten Dark Towers, so they were clearly much weaker than him. Still, twenty Perfect-Level Dark Tower Digimon might actually give him something of a challenge.  
"What was that?" Both Digimon were taken aback by his insult. Mummymon growled. "Mammon! Get him!" The Mammon complied and charged forward in four lines of five Mammon in each line in a stampede.

The large mammoths charged fast but BlackWarGreymon just stood still as they got closer. They soon ran past him but he was still standing.  
"So…?" Mummymon was just waiting for the results… hopefully, BlackWarGreymon would soon fall to his knees after being charged. However, he just stood there without a scratch. The shocker came when four of the Mammon's skin exploded revealing their Dark Tower bodies and then the bodies exploded into dust; much to the absolute shock of Archnemon and Mummymon.  
"No way! I can't believe it… tell me I didn't see what I saw…" Archnemon was completely dumbfounded by the strength of BlackWarGreymon.  
"Well, if what you saw was four large Mammon disintegrating, then I can't tell you that because that's what you saw!" Mummymon shook his head. "It's unbelievable, he destroyed four Perfect-Level Digimon in an instant!" BlackWarGreymon was suddenly unimpressed with the horde now as he now proved they weren't any more worth of a challenge than anything else he faced. He turned back around and charged the remaining Mammon that were coming back around. The fight wasn't even a fight. All the Ultimate Digimon had to was make a quick slice and the mammoth Digimon would just explode into dust.

Both Archnemon and Mummymon continued to watch in shock before it was just too much for the witch woman.  
"My precious Dark Towers…" She grew faint and fell over just to be caught by Mummymon. He continued to watch the absolute slaughter that was occurring before them. BlackWarGreymon cut his way through another Mammon before his mind started to drift into thought.  
 _"_ _I destroy…"_ The unstoppable warrior thought to himself as he destroyed another opponent. _"And destroy…"_ Another one fell before him. _"But I'm not satisfied."_ The remain Mammon charged him once more. _"They're not weak. But still…"_ He destroyed one more. "What is this emptiness!?" He roared aloud.  
"Emptiness?" Archnemon questioned as she got back up on her feet. She suddenly began to laugh, much to the confusion of the Ultimate Digimon who now had his foot on the neck of one Mammon. "That's just an illusion!" The Mammon under BlackWarGreymon's foot exploded shortly after. "You're the same as them. I created you with Dark Towers. You're just a puppet without life. Puppets don't think or feel anything. So he reason for that illusion of 'emptiness' of yours… Right… it must be program scum that got mixed in with the one hundred Dark Towers."

"Program scum?" BlackWarGreymon questioned as he didn't even look to slay another Mammon that tried to use the distracting conversation to its advantage. The rest went after him again, hoping he was conflicted enough to break him. "It would be so simple if I were just a Dark Tower Digimon. But…" He rapidly began to spin as he unleashed his own version of WarGreymon's Brave Tornado. Three Mammon got caught up in it and were destroyed instantly. "I suffer because I'm not!" He soon turned back to Archnemon and Mummymon. "And you tell me this pain is an illusion?" Archnemon shrugged her hands as Mummymon took a step forward.  
"There's a way you can kill the pain."  
"What?"  
"Forsake your own self and do what we tell you to do. Ignore these stupid feelings your having and follow your damn orders!"  
"Are we having this conversation again? I told you two before, I don't take orders from anyone. And I certainly won't obey someone weaker than me.  
"What?" Mummymon growled again.

"Enough." Archnemon interrupted. "You can't provoke us." She looked to him for a moment before turning around. "Do what you want. We're done with you. So long." She began to walk away.  
"Hey, wait up!" Mummymon tried to catch up to her as they returned back to their Dune Buggy. BlackWarGreymon soon turned his attention back to the Mammon as they roared once more and tried to destroy him.  
"All of you… you really don't feel anything? You don't have a soul?" WarGreymon muttered as he watched them approach. He charged right back at them. "Answer me!" He screamed as he engaged them once more.

The Dune Buggy jumped a large hill and hit the ground hard but it still kept going.  
"Hey, take it easy on this thing!" Archnemon shouted at her driver.  
"Sorry…" Mummymon answered and took it a bit easier on the driving.  
"Seriously… useless junk." growled Archnemon as she punched the dash board.  
"Say, Archnemon…"  
"What?"  
"About the Holy Stones…"  
"Oh, that again… those things you've been looking for?" She rolled her eyes.  
"There's one around here." He informed. "How about we check it out?" He suggested to her. She responded to it by sighing.  
"I suppose so… it's not like we've got anything better to do to cause destruction at the moment. Hey, is the rumor true?"

A sinister smile spread across the mummy's face.  
"We'll find out if we break it."  
"Up to you."  
"Good!" He gripped the wheel and turned a different direction. "By the way, I wonder if we have souls."  
"Oh please, don't you start too… I've never thought about tedious things like that."  
"Of course, but still…"  
"Just shut up and drive." The two of them continued on their way, unbeknownst that Tentomon was tailing them.  
"Holy Stone, huh? Sounds like something Koushiro-han and the others need to be alerted to." He quickly flew away to spread the word to the Chosen Children.  
"Why?" BlackWarGreymon continued to question as he continued to destroy the Mammon attacking him. "Why won't you answer me?" He turned to look at the few remaining that just kept going despite everything that had happened. "I envy you. All of you… who don't think about anything."

 _Motomiya Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 12th, 2002. 1132 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

I was playing Dragon Quest VII on my PlayStation 1 when I heard the bathroom door open and saw Jun looking at me while having a bath towel wrapped around her body and head. She sighed.  
"I really envy you, Daisuke." Oh, Gods, what is it today? I took a bite of my cookie that I had in my mouth. "All you do is eat, sleep, play and you don't think about anything else, do you?" Hey, I got the fate of the Digital World on my mind too, sis! Though I ain't planning on telling you that.  
"I think about lots of stuff!" I shouted at her with my mouth full of chewed up cookie.  
"Lots of stuff, like what?"  
"Like…" Uh oh. Bad time for you to freeze up, brain! I need to think of something! "Lots of complicated stuff." I finally said. Vague answer but better than nothing I guess. "But if I think too much, my brain freezes so I need to take a break sometimes." Oh, why did I say that!? Damn it, my mouth and brain are clearly on two different wave lengths!  
"I'm sure it's nothing serious." She scoffed.  
"Shut up! What about you?"

She quickly sighed and turned slightly away from me.  
"I…" She turned back to me and pointed to a spot that was on her face. "Look! I have a pimple on my chin!" She quickly had hearts in her eyes. "Could it be a sign that Yamato-kun has finally accepted my feelings?" That's a really weird way to give a sign of approval. "Wouldn't that be great? But if it's some ugly old guy…" I turned my attention back to Dragon Quest. "Daisuke, listen to me!" Jun got really upset at me ignoring her. She hurriedly went over to the power outlet and pulled the plug, shutting everything off!  
"Hey, I didn't save yet! What do you think you're doing, you idiot!?"  
"It's your fault for not listening to me!" I charged her… and received a hard slap in the face. I went back to my room as I rubbed my cheek that certainly was red with her hand print.  
"Dammit… what a stupid sister…"  
"Daisuke!" Chibimon ran over to me while holding my D-Terminal. "An e-mail from Hikari!" 'Tentomon found Archnemon. Meet at Headquarters!' It read. I nodded and grabbed a few things before heading out with Chibimon.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

BlackWarGreymon stared down the final Mammon before his eye sight looked down and he saw a lone flower on the ground growing out of a small patch of grass. He looked at it closely as Mammon began his final charge at him before he realized that it would be crushed underneath the mighty hoof. BlackWarGreymon ducked down and let himself be stomped on, but trying hard not to let the flower be crushed. After taking multiple stomps, he threw the mammoth off and jumped into the air to release his devastating attack.  
"Gaia Force!" The Mammon was completely destroyed upon the attack hitting it. BlackWarGreymon was once again alone, still unsatisfied with the fight. _"Why did I protect this flower?"_ He thought to himself. _"It's just a little flower…"_

"Compassion, huh…" Osamu sighed as he sat at his desk and looked at his crest. The D-Terminal that Ken got him a few days ago beeped and he checked to see that he had received a message from Hikari. "'We know where Archnemon is. Sorry if we're being intrusive. Yagami Hikari.'" He finished reading it aloud for him and Monodramon. "Thanks…" He stood up at his desk when his door opened to reveal Ken with Wormmon on his shoulders.  
"Onii-san… did you…"  
"Yeah, I did. Monodramon, let's go!" The brothers headed back to the Digital World.

BlackWarGreymon kneeled down next to the flower and looked at it some more. Questioning why he went out of his way to protect it.  
"You're the opposite of me. You're alive, but you don't feel sadness. I envy you. I envy you…" He then growled and stomped on the flower, crushing it under his scale covered foot and rubbing to make sure it was destroyed. He pulled up his foot and the flower was all but dead. But the Digimon still felt strange about his action. _"Why do I feel pain? It was just a flower… so why? Where does this pain come from? The soul? Where is the soul?"_

Out in a wide valley of green grass and large roads, there stood a large rock with a golden ring around it covered in digital letters; similar to the ones that Koushiro saw in ruins during the Chosen Children's last adventure.  
"That's a Holy Stone?" Archnemon questioned as she and Mummymon hopped out of the car near a pile of Dark Towers.  
"That's right."  
"So if we break it, something interesting will happen?"  
"That's the idea…"  
"Okay then." She pulled out some hairs and blew them to the Dark Towers. All of them melded together and soon created a large Knight Digimon with a huge sword. "Go, Knightmon! Break that Holy Stone." The large armored Digimon complied with its orders and started to walk over to the stone.

It was getting close to sundown in the area BlackWarGreymon had walked into. His mind solely focused on trying to figure out the emptiness inside him and the search for a worthy opponent.  
"We meet at last!" Agumon's voice rang out across the rocky valley that BlackWarGreymon was in. He looked ahead and saw a large rock spire about his height with Agumon on top of it. "I've been looking for you."  
"For me? To fight?"  
"Well… how about we talk first? Ah, I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Agumon. When I warp-evolve to Ultimate, I become WarGreymon. Er, well, I used to… I've kinda lost that ability… long story."  
"Could it be… you were born from Dark Towers too?"  
"No, I was born from a Digiegg." BlackWarGreymon sighed.  
"Then it would be useless to talk." He started to walk past Agumon. He then stopped again. "No, we can talk." He turned around. "However, I want you to answer my questions."  
"Questions?"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Hikari and I arrived to the area that Tentomon pointed us to and we saw this large knight walking towards this big stone in the middle of nowhere.  
"What's… that stone?" I questioned. The knight was soon up to it and pulled out his sword before he started to swing at it. "What's that guy doing? Practicing swordsmanship?"  
"But he's just going to damage the edge." observed XV-mon.  
"Maybe he's strengthening it." Hikari guessed.  
"I see!" I agreed.  
"No, that's not it." Nefertimon countered. "I feel some power. That could be the Holy Stone I've heard rumors about."  
"Holy Stone?"  
"What's that?" Hikari asked.  
"I don't know." Nefertimon shook her head. "But rumor has it, when a Holy Stone is destroyed, a frightening disaster will happen in this world." Our eyes widened upon hearing that. Now it made sense why Archnemon and Mummymon were here.  
"Then, we have to stop him!" determined Hikari.  
"Okay, we'll do it." I nodded. "Hikari-chan, you contact Takeru and the others."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"I think it's here…" Agumon put his hands to his chest as he was answering BlackWarGreymon's questions. "No, maybe here…" He moved his hands to his head. "Sorry, I don't really know where the soul is…"  
"Even though you're alive, you don't know? Do souls really exist? Aren't they just an illusion?"  
"They're not an illusion! Caring about someone, believing in them… Those feelings aren't illusions at all!"  
"Then, let me ask. What is the purpose of a soul?"  
"To let Digimon be Digimon, and humans be humans."  
"But I'm just a lifeless body."  
"Why would I have a soul?" Agumon just scratched his head.  
"Your questions are so tough… I'm not good at this… Let's see, that's because…"  
"Because…?"  
"Sorry… can you repeat the question?" Agumon nervously chuckled.

Back at the Holy Stone, Knightmon quickly stopped swinging at the rock to try to strike down XV-mon who was distracting him. The dragon held the sword up from its sides to keep him from being split in half.  
"Go for it, XV-mon!" Daisuke cheered out for his Digimon partner. Knightmon soon pulled out a second sword and got ready for the killing stroke.  
"Silver Blaze!" Pegasmon's attack hit the knight in the head, knocking him to the ground.  
"Daisuke-kun!" "We're here to help!" Takeru and Iori informed as all the Digimon grouped up. The broke away as Mummymon's cackling rang out and he fired his rifle at them. Archnemon ambushed them as well and unleashed large spider webs at them.  
"This is the plan I drummed up! I won't let you get in the way!" Mummymon told the Chosen Children as Knightmon went back to swinging his sword at the Holy Stone.

"I'm not alive… I'm not a living creature." BlackWarGreymon said as the sun was now fully set, the sky barely illuminated by the sun now. "Should I have a soul, what would I gain from it?" BlackWarGreymon continued his deep, philosophical discussion with Agumon.  
"Gain?" Agumon questioned, not really understanding where his opposite was going with it. A realization then hit him. "I know that! Friends!"  
"Friends?"  
"Yeah! If you have a soul, you're not just a thing anymore. You're a living creature just like us. So, we can become friends!"  
"Friends…" The concept was very confusing to BlackWarGreymon. "What else? Is there anything more?"  
"Anything more… What do you want?"  
"I don't know."  
"You don't know…?" Agumon sat on his tail, exasperated by all the questions.

"It's not friends… of course, it's not fame or money either." BlackWarGreymon was convinced that those were not the things to fill his emptiness. "It's something more important… Yes, the reason why I exist."  
"The reason why you exist?"  
"Yes. What should I do in this world? No, what must I do? If it's fighting the strong, that's fine. I'll devote myself to fighting and defeating my opponents." However, his mind quickly flashed back to the flower and he was confused once more. "But… If I have a soul and it gets in the way of fighting… I will get rid of it!" He declared.  
"Y-you can't!" Agumon tried to counter his logic about removing the soul. "You can't get rid of your soul!"

"Now, take this!" Mummymon threw out his Snake Bandage attack at the Chosen Digimon. Archnemon did the same with her webs and XV-mon and Aquilamon were all tied up now in their sinister attacks.  
"I can't move…" The eagle Digimon groaned as the web tightened around his neck. Nefertimon devolved back into Tailmon who began running over towards Aquilamon.  
"Aquilamon, Jogress!" Tailmon alerted him. Archnemon wasn't having any of that and launched another web at the small cat. The web wrapped around her neck too.  
"Tailmon!" Hikari cried as she ran over to her partner and tried to remove the web. The Chosen were in dire straits at the moment; facing off against three Perfects. Pegasmon was on the ground under Knightmon's boot and the knight was lifting his sword up to impale him.  
"You can't cut my body with a sword!" Ankylomon shouted as he ran to Pegasmon's aid. The knight turned around and began stabbing Ankylomon instead. He was right about not being able to cut him, but it was still painful to get poked by the sharp blade. "Not fair, dagyaa… a sword isn't made for hitting…" The Chosen Children all watched in shock as they saw all their Digimon be in serious trouble.  
"Let's tighten it up a little." cackled Mummymon as he and Archnemon laughed.

"Spiking Finish!" "Strike Fang!" Stingmon and Strikedramon arrived in the nick of time and destroyed the bandages and webs that freed two-thirds of the Chosen Digimon.  
"X-Laser!" "Blast Laser!" XV-mon and Aquilamon fired their attacks and struck their former captors.  
"Alright!" Daisuke pumped his fist.  
"Ken-kun! Osamu-san!" Miyako called out as she turned to see the brothers running towards them.  
"Sorry we're late!" Osamu apologized.  
"We got held up! Daisuke, now's the time!" Ken shouted.  
"Everyone, it's our chance!" Tailmon, who was now freed as well, ran over to Aquilamon.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress-Evolve! SILPHYMON!"  
"Desperado Blaster!" Paildramon's fire bounces off of Knightmon's armor, but the Dark Tower Perfect is taken aback by the power of the attack.  
"Megaton Press!" Ankylomon jumps on top of Knightmon and starts to rock on him. "How's that, huh? An eye for an eye, dagyaa!"  
"Nice! Keep it up, Ankylomon!" cheered Iori as the fight turned back into the Chosen Children's favor.

"You can't do that! Getting rid of your soul…" Agumon continued to argue with BlackWarGreymon about the idea he had about removing his soul. "If you have a soul, it can't be a coincidence. Besides, it's ridiculous to get rid of your soul for fighting!" Agumon's voice echoed across canyon as it was bathed in the light of the night. "I think we can be friends. No, I'm sure that's the reason you have a soul!"  
"Can you prove it?" BlackWarGreymon asked him as a star behind them glowed bright red in the sky.  
"I sure will! It may take some time, though." Agumon then held out his hand. BlackWarGreymon contemplated what was being asked and he slowly began to raise his hand to shake with Agumon.  
"Desperado Blaster!" "Top Gun!" Both Jogress attacks bounced of Knightmon's armor and he swung at them. They dodge it but his sword cracked and then shattered the metal band around the Holy Stone. It soon began to flash a glowing red. At the same moment, BlackWarGreymon was engulfed in pain before he could shake Agumon's hand.  
"Wh-what's wrong?" Agumon was concerned for the Ultimate.  
"I feel pain… Something is hurting me…"

"Wh-what's going on?" Daisuke questioned as everyone looked towards the Holy Stone.  
"Something happened to the Holy Stone!" exclaimed Silphymon. Back in the canyon, BlackWarGreymon screamed in pain. He then immediately took off, leaving Agumon alone.  
"Where are you going? Wait!" Agumon felt pain as well; he felt so close to being able to probably help BlackWarGreymon.  
"Damn it!" Mummymon shouted as he fired his rifle at the Holy Stone; the wave of electricity not doing a thing to it. Knightmon's sword wasn't doing anything either.  
"Our attacks aren't working at all." Archnemon observed. "Mummymon, did you really check it out carefully?"  
"Well, I… Ah, damn it! I thought it was a great plan!"  
"I swear.." Their attention was quickly turned to a dark cloud that was slowly approaching, which Archnemon guessed it could only be one thing. "BlackWarGreymon?" She turned back to her partner. "Mummymon, we'll retreat for now!"  
"Got it!" The two of them fired back at the Chosen Children as they made their retreat.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"What's with those guys?" I questioned as Mummymon and Archnemon ran away from us.  
"They realized they didn't stand a chance, so they ran away!" Miyako smirked.  
"Uh, that's not it, Miyako-san!" Ken cried out. "Look!" He pointed to a dark cloud approaching… and we could see it was BlackWarGreymon.  
"BlackWarGreymon!" Hikari exclaimed. He was coming towards the area fast. Knightmon stopped striking the Holy Stone to turn his attention to him. BlackWarGreymon just head-butted him and he exploded to dust before coming to a stop in front of the Holy Stone.  
"What!?" I said.  
"In just a second…" Miyako was intimidated by his power once more.  
"Gaia Force!" BlackWarGreymon gathered his strength for an attack and struck the Holy Stone, cracking it!  
"This is bad!" Silphymon shouted.  
"We'll stop him!" Paildramon determined. The Digimon charged forward to stop him, but… BlackWarGreymon threw another Gaia Force, this time at them, blasting them all back and into their devolved forms.

"Pururumon!" Miyako screamed as she ran forward.  
"You're kidding me, right?" I growled.  
"They really are no match for him…" Osamu reluctantly admitted. With the distractions removed, BlackWarGreymon turned his attention back to the Holy Stone.  
"Gaia Force!"  
"It's breaking…" Iori observed as he kept striking the massive attack against the rock.  
"Gaia Force!" We watched as the Holy Stone exploded into rubble and a dark tornado began to swirl around the ruins of it. The wind picked up greatly.  
"It's sucking us in!" Takeru yelled. Miyako screamed once more as she felt herself getting picked up by the vortex.  
"Miyako-san!" Ken cried as he ran to her and grabbed her arm before she could be carried any further. He then managed to get her back on the ground as the vortex got stronger.  
"Everyone, run!" Iori ordered. We gathered our Digimon and managed to get away from the tornado.

We returned back to the hills and watched as the devastating tornado just kept swirling.  
"This is terrible…" Hikari admitted.  
"Who knows what this will do to the Digital World?" Osamu worried.  
"There are more Holy Stones right?" Takeru turned to Plotmon.  
"If I heard the rumors right, then there should be more." She said.  
"And that means we need to protect them from BlackWarGreymon before anymore destruction can be spread." I determined.

Of course, do we have anything that can be able to stop BlackWarGreymon…?

* * *

It sure is going to take a lot of firepower to stop him, that's for sure. It's gonna take heart, faith and steel... wait a second... Oh, sorry, that's from **_Highlander_** , was watching it last night. Good movie.

Anyways, I've said all that I want to say for this, so take care.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	39. Encounter in Kyoto! Musyamon!

Knocked this one out pretty quick.

Shoutout to **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **Whiteling** for the reviews once more.

Not really much to say for this one, so I'll just hop in.

* * *

 **Chapter 38: Encounter in Kyoto! Musyamon!**

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 19th, 2002. 1058 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

I hate it when things don't go our way. Here I thought we may have caught a bit of a break when BlackWarGreymon went rogue against Archnemon and was basically staying out of our way. According to the others, that's kinda changed. Agumon told Taichi that he actually got close to gaining BlackWarGreymon's friendship but he suddenly felt pain and took off. It was there that he destroyed the first Holy Stone; something that is very important to the stability of the Digital World. Archnemon and Mummymon tried to destroy it but failed; however, it seems the stones and BlackWarGreymon are tied together in some way. That's probably the reason why he destroyed it. That damn war machine is playing right into that witch's hand!

Now the race is on for us to find the other Holy Stones and defend them from BlackWarGreymon. He seems obsessed with destroying them so we're going to try to stop him as best as we can. The only problem is right now we're short a key member! Miyako's freaking class decided that now was a great time for a class trip to Kyoto! I mean, I know Miyako couldn't really pass on it without drawing some attention from her class and family, but still… bad timing. Would've been better if it had happened while we were rebuilding the Digital World and before Archnemon was making her moves. Anyways, she also left behind Poromon with Koushiro.

Today, Koushiro and I headed to Tamachi to meet Osamu and Ken at their place. Koushiro more or less wanted to discuss some things he learned with them and explain a few questions they still may have had. I tagged along because I had nothing better to do. We were in Osamu's room as he, Koushiro and Ken along with Wormmon were sitting at a table they pulled out while Poromon was asleep on the floor. I was with Monodramon, Guilmon and Tentomon on the floor as well but we were playing poker while listening to conversation the geniuses were having.

"'Poromon, how are you?'" Ken began reading off a message Miyako left on Koushiro's D-Terminal. "'Hello, Koushiro-san. Thank you for taking care of Poromon. This is the second day of our field trip in Kyoto! The character for 'Miyako' is the same as the 'Kyo' in 'Kyoto'. Kyoto is more modern that I thought, and the food is great!' She more or less runs on about Kyoto and promises to bring you back a souvenir, Poromon." Ken finished reading the message. "Sorry, what was it we were talking about?" Ken apologized for interrupting the conversation.  
"Osamu was explaining the time he went to the Dark World and how he baptized his Digivice in the ocean." I got the conversation back on track as I upped the ante.  
"Right…" Koushiro spoke up. "So it was in that dark ocean where the Digivice turned into a D-3."  
"I see…" Osamu looked guilty once more.  
"In order to compete with your D-3, all of us needed the same type of D-3." Koushiro placed his on the table. "Not like the ones we had before. The D-3 shape must have been something you wished for. The Digivices changed once we got our first Digimentals to match that shape."

"A shape I wished for…?" Osamu questioned as Guilmon finally folded and I took the pot.  
"When the Digital World gathers data, there's a system that controls shapes. It reads the shape of a person's thoughts and organizes the data in that same way. That's probably why all our clothes change when we go to the Digital World now."  
"I see… So the Kaiser's clothes were something I wished for…"  
"Well that explains why I look like I'm about to raid Makin Atoll considering I plan on being a marine officer." I stated.  
"I was actually wondering what that outfit was." Ken replied to my statement.  
"Yes, our clothes were all brought about due to our subconscious desires." Koushiro continued to explain. "Still the main question that remains is who sent that e-mail that got you to the Dark World in the first place."  
"I don't know yet… but I get a feeling it's related to Archnemon. When she was in my room, that e-mail flashed across my walls in the dark for a few moments before she vanished."  
"That could explain how she's able to use the Dark Towers, Onii-san. After all, she's admitted that she used you as a pawn in her own plans. According to her, we all could've easily been the Kaiser or Kaiserin." informed Ken.  
"I know for a fact that about three and a half years ago when I was deep in my depression, she probably could've gotten to me." I admitted.

"It's possible it is her. Ken-kun is right about the Dark Towers as well as they probably have functions we don't know about yet. There's still a lot to look into." Koushiro said.  
"I'm sorry. My memory is pretty clear… but some areas are still a haze. Probably our answers are in that haze." apologized Osamu.  
"Yeah, the same thing is with me as well. My memories have cleared up as well, but there's still a fog up there." Ken added.  
"No, don't worry." Koushiro assured them. "We were supposed to find you before the sender, in any case. We were careless. We never imagined a Chosen Child was so close to us, more or less two."  
"So close? What do you mean by that?" Osamu questioned.  
"Well, the truth of the matter is we're not the only Chosen Children. There are quite a lot of them all over the world."  
"Like Michael Fox from New York or Wallace Henderson who we met not to long after we defeated you." I explained.  
"Right. We still don't know all the details. Most of them meeting the Digimon when they appeared in the real world in 1999 was only the start. More that 'Chosen', they are children who have Digimon partners."  
"The same went for us, Onii-san, remember? We saw Ikkakumon twice at the start of August." Ken spoke up.  
"Yeah… and then we went to the Digital World about July of 2000… Ugh… why can I remember." Osamu sounded like he was beating himself up about it.

The conversation soon changed when Koushiro looked back over at Poromon who was looking pretty down.  
"Hey, Poromon, what's wrong? You're not feeling well?"  
"I'm sure it's because he's been in this world away from his partner for so long." Wormmon suggested.  
"He's got a point… whenever you're away, Ross… I feel a bit… drained." Guilmon told me. Tentomon and Monodramon nodded too.  
"I see…" Koushiro looked like he was theorizing as he picked up Poromon. "It's been three days since Miyako-kun left on her trip."  
"It may only be three days, but being away from her must be tiring." Tentomon said.  
"I'm guess it's because since we're not from this world… what keeps up our strength here is our connection to our human partners. The further and longer you're away… the weaker we get." theorized Monodramon.

"So my theory may be correct then. Digimon have a hard time just trying to exist in this world." Koushiro came to a conclusion.  
"Well, if that's the case, then let's take him to the Digital World. Motomiya-kun and the others are already there, right?" Osamu asked.  
"Yes, they got there earlier today. I've been meaning to go back myself lately just to check out what sort of distortions have been happening since BlackWarGreymon destroyed the Holy Stone."  
"Then let's get going then." I stood up and grabbed the cards. "I won already anyways." I chuckled to myself when I heard the three Digimon grumble.  
"By the way… Izumi-kun, why did you want me to tell you about this?" Osamu referred back to the entire conversation from before.  
"Because I wanted to know." Koushiro simply said. "When I first went to the Digital World, I had my own theory about what that world was." I rolled my eyes as I was there to hear every one of those theories. "But I was younger than you back then and had little information, so I didn't quite understand it. I want to know the true nature of the Digital World. It would also give us insight into our world." Same old Koushiro, a never ending thirst of knowledge.

 _Kyoto, Japan. October 19th, 2002. 1153 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Okay everyone, be back here in two hours." Our teacher informed us.  
"Okay!" We all said and went our separate ways. Kyoto has been terrific and I'm so glad I came on this trip! I did feel kind of guilty about leaving Poromon behind so that's why I was currently on the lookout for the greatest souvenir that I could find to make up for it to him. I was walking along with two of my classmates when I soon saw something in the window that was perfect.  
"Hey, Enko, Kaiya. Hold up a moment, I gotta buy this while in Kyoto." I quickly buy the gift and then I go back to listing what else I planned to buy to the girls. "And then, raw yatsuhashi and oil blotting paper!" I walked for a few more steps before I saw something strange from above. It looked like a weird, clear tornado. My eyes widened so fast when I saw something black forming out of it and taking on a very familiar and very disturbing shape… BlackWarGreymon.

 _Digital World. October 19th, 2002. 1202 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Gaia Force!" BlackWarGreymon yelled out as he struck another Holy Stone with his devastating attack. Archnemon and Mummymon watched from a nearby rocky cliff at the destruction he was causing. "Destroy it…" He muttered to himself as he threw another Gaia Force. "If I destroy it, I'll get rid of this pain!" He know believed the answer to ending his pain would be the destruction of the Holy Stones.  
"I don't care, but just keep at it." Archnemon wasn't concerned about his troubles, just so long as he caused untold damage for her, she was fine with it. "Destroy everything."  
"Even if you leave him be, he'll just keep doing it." Mummymon reminded her.  
"Gaia Force!" The stone exploded into dust upon the attack' impact. Daisuke's group soon arrived and saw the smoldering rock.  
"Dammit… we didn't make it." He cursed. The others soon joined him and saw a strange black void coming from the ruins of the Holy Stone.  
"Wh-what the?" Takeru questioned.  
"A distortion?" Hikari guessed.  
"It's losing balance." Iori observed.

The children looked closely as the void was expelling waves of this black mist while BlackWarGreymon just stood there close to the epicenter.  
"When BlackWarGreymon moved before, the world looked distorted." said Iori. "By destroying that rock, the distortion will surely become worse." Takeru soon noticed something was much more off about BlackWarGreymon at the moment.  
"Hey! BlackWarGreymon is…" BlackWarGreymon began to fade out like a corrupted VHS tape before he suddenly vanished; to the surprise of everyone who was there.  
"What?" Archnemon shouted. Back in Kyoto, a covered up well exploded with purple energy shooting out of it; to the notice of no one but one girl.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I run around the corner after I ditched my friends and sure enough I see a distorted looking BlackWarGreymon walking the streets.  
"I knew it… BlackWarGreymon!" I said to myself. Behind him walked several other black blobs that didn't really have any discernable features, but I knew they were Digimon as well. I looked around and to my complete surprise, no one was even batting an eye! It's like they couldn't see anything. "Why? Doesn't anyone notice!?" I may have spoken a bit too loud. I turned to look at a stop light and saw the thing going crazy. People were more confused about that then the damn Digimon walking through the city! The line of Digimon soon reached the bridge and I kept running right after them. "Wait!" I shouted as I tried to keep up. They just kept moving, ignoring me until they reached a park. "Wait, Digimon!" I was nearly out of breath when one of them turned around and soon revealed itself to be this large yellow ape like Digimon with a large bone tied to its back. If I recalled, this was a Hanumon; we had a run in with one of them when we were fighting Osamu a few months ago. It growled as it looked around all confused.  
"Where am I?" He questioned before he immediately jumped away.  
"I have to tell someone!" I exclaimed before I pulled out my D-Terminal. "Help! There are Digimon in Kyoto! Someone, do something!" I then hit send and hoped for an answer.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Daisuke's group had more pressing concerns at the moment then to answer Miyako's message; mainly the fact that Archnemon and Mummymon were staring them down from the opposite cliff.  
"You want to fight? Numbers won't help you." The witch taunted. Daisuke scoffed at her words.  
"We won't lose! Let's go, V-mon!"  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!"  
"Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!"  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!"  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"

"Hiroaki-san…" A young woman was looking lovingly at a young man while they were being recorded.  
"Emiko-san…" The man replied as BlackWarGreymon appeared on the camera before it started to glitch out.  
"Ah! Wait a second!" The black haired bespectacled man recording the scene shouted out.  
"What's wrong, Shuu?" The man asked him.  
"Eh… H-huh…? Something was there just now…" Up above him, Hanumon jumped down from a roof and crushed the camera under his feet. The woman screamed in fear.  
"What is that!?" She shouted as Miyako turned the corner.  
"I caught up…" She muttered. "But now what?" The ape turned his club towards Shuu and looked like he was ready to attack.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I stood there helpless to do anything as I watched the yellow ape Digimon get ready to bash that poor guy's skull in. Oh, why did I not just take Poromon with me!? However, my fears were hurriedly quashed when I heard a buzzing noise and then out from a tree behind the man came Stingmon! Hanumon jumped up and swung his club at him before the two of them landed on different roofs and stared at each other.  
"Stingmon?" I shouted as I ran over closer to the fight.  
"Miyako-san!" I heard Ken's voice and turned to see him running towards me with Poromon in his arms.  
"Ken-kun!" He stopped in front of me. "Why?"  
"Miyako-san!" Poromon cheered as he jumped into my arms.  
"I'll explain later." Ken told me. He then turned to Stingmon. "Stingmon! That's not a Dark Tower Digimon, so we can't destroy him!"  
"Leave it to me, Ken-chan!"

Stingmon turned his attention back to Hanumon. The monkey made the first moved and jumped towards him but Stingmon got above him and punched him in the back; sending him crashing into the ground in front of us. Stingmon then soon got him in an arm lock.  
"Ken-chan, hurry!" Ken turned to me.  
"Miyako-san, I leave the rest to you."  
"L-leave it to me!? Wait!" I shout. He gives me a wink and then runs off with Stingmon and they soon leave my field of vision. Three things were on my mind. The first was how was Ken here and with Poromon no less. Two, what exactly am I supposed to do? The third thing was… after saving me last week and that wink he just gave me… I think I'm really falling for him.

"What should we do?" Poromon questioned.  
"I don't know… By the way, why are you here?"  
"W-well…"  
"Ah, there she is. Professor, over here!" I looked up to see the glasses wearing man from earlier looking at me as an older gentleman, perhaps in his late 30s or early 40s, walked up next to him.  
"You there! You're the one who said something about 'Digimon' before, right?" Oh, great, I'm busted. I nervously nodded. "And what you have in your arms… That's a Digimon, right?"  
"Eh… yeah…"

I don't know how, but I soon ended up following these men to a yellow Volkswagen New Beetle and was driving through town.  
"Sorry for the late introduction." The older man apologized to me as we sat in the backseat while the younger man was driving. "I'm Takenouchi Haruhiko." Wait a second, Takenouchi? "I teach folklore at a university in Tokyo, but I've been doing research in Kyoto since last year. And he is…" He turned his attention to the driver.  
"Kido Shuu, second year student." Kido? Oh, no way… "I was actually studying for medical but after attending one of the professor's lectures, I switched to humanities. My older brother is in his final year of college before heading to med school and my younger brother is also studying to be a doctor."  
"I… I'm from Tokyo, sixth grade. Inoue Miyako. I'm here on a field trip…"  
"I knew it! I've heard of you from my younger brother." Haruhiko chuckled then.  
"I've heard my daughter mention you, too." Okay, that probably confirms it.  
"Um… by any chance… Um, are you talking about Kido Jou-san and Takenouchi Sora-san?"  
"Bingo!" Oh, I'm gonna die of embarrassment now! Hearing Sora's dad use my catchphrase… oi.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"X-Laser!" XV-mon's attack hit the cliffside and engulfed Archnemon and Mummymon in smoke. When it cleared, they were in their true forms.  
"Now it's my turn!" Mummymon shouted as he opened fire. He fire chased XV-mon across the sky, the mummy cackling as he took sick enjoyment from trying to kill the Digimon.  
"XV-mon!" Stingmon shouted as he flew into the area.  
"Guys!" Ken shouted at the gang as he, Osamu, Koushiro and Ross followed behind him.  
"Heh, what kept you guys?" Daisuke joked.  
"Sorry, had to stop for lunch!" Ross chimed in with him.  
"Didn't bring anything back for us? Ah, you owe us later! Ken, Jogress time!"  
"Right!" Ross and Osamu looked at each other as well and nodded too.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!"

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"I do research like this, so I travel all over Japan. Sometimes I even go overseas, so I can't easily go home.." Takenouchi-san kept explaining who he was to me. "For a while, it caused my daughter to rebel against her mother. But three years ago, my daughter suddenly changed. When we talked about it, she said it was thanks to something called Digimon."  
"Thanks to the Digimon?" I questioned as I looked to Poromon.  
"How to put it... When she was with the Digimon, she experienced a lot and matured. She learned to view things with an open mind." I really couldn't say anything in response that. "I'm grateful to these Digimon."  
"Ah, well…" Poromon blushed.  
"I don't understand all that much, but… I'm glad."  
"So that's a real Digimon…" Shuu spoke up. "I didn't think I'd ever see the real thing. Three years ago, I was at training camp away from Tokyo, and I saw the images in the night sky. But it was so far I couldn't recognize my younger brother… or that my older one was also giving a hand to all the Digimon stuff that went down in Odaiba."

"Still, why did Digimon appear in Kyoto?" I asked mostly to myself.  
"Since it became the capital, it's had a deep affinity for 'Kori' and spirits." Takenouchi-san said.  
"Kori?"  
"It means foxes and tanuki. My current research is about finding facts in these spirit stories, basically."  
"I… see…"  
"When Kyoto became the capital, it was chosen due to its land being suitable for the four gods. Have you heard of that?"  
"Kind of." I shook my hand slightly.  
"To the north, Genbu the turtle of Funaoka Mountain. To the east, Seiryuu the dragon of the Kamo River. To the south, Suzaku the bird of Lake Ogura. To the west, Byakko the tiger of Sanindo Road. In other words, a land at the base of a mountain, with accessible lakes and roads and the opening to the south making it fit to be the capital is how one can understand the interpretation." I can see was Shuu switched majors then. This man certainly draws you in with his lectures.

"In addition…" He continued. "In order to protect the capital from the 'demon gate', important shrines and temples were built. It was thought that evil spirits would appear otherwise."  
"Demon gates… evil spirits…" I muttered to myself as these phrases were sounding quite familiar.  
"Professor." Shuu chuckled.  
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Takenouchi-san quickly apologized. "It just slips out. Well, Kyoto has changed anyway. It's not like it used to be anymore. In any case, whether a demon world or a strange world, that is, a world different from ours, Kyoto's land may be quite similar."  
"Strange world, demon world…" I muttered once again.  
"The Digimon you saw and the Digital World's distortion may have affected Kyoto more than Tokyo." I gave him an awkward smile.  
"The way you say it… it sounds like the Digimon are related to the spirits."  
"Aren't they?" That took me by surprise. "As long as they exist here, they can't just be a bunch of data, can they? The Tsukomogami, or artifact spirit in simpler terms, are said to be items that became spirits a hundred years after being created by humans. They may have started as simple data in a computer, but they're alive now." I just had to stare at Poromon upon hearing that. "Just like the Tsukomogami, don't you think?"

I soon looked back forward when I saw BlackWarGreymon and the other Digimon on the road. I rolled down Shuu's window.  
"Wait a second! Wait!" He hit the brakes and one of the shadows became normal like with Hanumon. This one, however, looked more like a shogun as he turned around and jumped on the side of the bridge above us.  
"Wh-what's that?" Shuu questioned.  
"That would be Musyamon! He's an armored samurai Digimon, though he looks more like a fallen warrior. His special attack is Kirisute Gomen, a strike with his sword that he calls White Bird." Poromon explained.  
"So avoid the sword, got it!"  
"Miyako-san!" Poromon turned to me. "Poromon, evolve! HAWKMON!" He then flew out of the window of the car.  
"Go, Hawkmon!" I cheered while I gipped the seat.  
"So this is a Digimon's evolution…" Both men were quite amazed with the sight they had witnessed.

"Feather Slash!" Hawkmon threw his feather at the samurai, only for him to swing his sword and sent the feather back to Hawkmon. It's gonna take a samurai to combat a samurai.  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve!" I shouted.  
"Yes!"  
"Digimental Up!"  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Bursting Purity, Shurimon!" Shurimon took to the skies once more. "Autumn Wind!" His attack knocked Musyamon right off of the bridge as the two exchanged steel.  
"Wow! Seeing an evolution with my own eyes…" Shuu was impressed.  
"Kido-kun, follow them!" Takenouchi-san ordered.  
"Okay!" We all got back into the car and followed.

Both Digimon looked at each other as they ran across the roof tops like it was movie. They'd jump towards each other, clang their weapons together and land on the opposite roof and repeated the cycle. There was only one way to stop the fight.  
"Professor, did you bring a laptop?" I asked.  
"Yeah."  
"Kirisute Gomen!"  
"Kusanagi!" The large shuriken won the fight and the samurai was paralyzed at the moment which allowed Shurimon to throw him into the small lake that we parked next to. Shuu opened the laptop and I held up my D-3.  
"Digital Gate, open!" The computer lit up. "Shurimon, the gate is open!" Shurimon responded by tossing Musyamon towards Shuu and the laptop and he vanished into the computer. "Close it!" Shuu complied and Musyamon was successfully returned to the Digital World.

"It disappeared…?" He questioned.  
"No, it didn't disappear." The professor explained. "It went to the Digital World." I just sighed in relief as Shurimon devolved all the way back to Poromon and flew back into my arms.  
"Good job." I congratulated him. "Oh right, BlackWarGreymon and the others…" I looked ahead and saw him and the other Digimon begin to fade out before they vanished.  
"They're all leaving." Shuu observed. Huh? I guess they can see them now considering they saw Poromon and the others.  
"But why… did they appear in the Real World?" I questioned once more. "What for?"  
"Even if it doesn't make any sense to us, they must have had a reason." Takenouchi-san believed.  
 _"_ _Now we can open a gate to the Digital World and send them over there, but back in Taichi-san's days, they couldn't do that…"  
_ "Miyako-chan." Shuu broke me out of my thoughts. "I'll take you back. You won't make the assembly time, right?" I checked the clock and realized the time.  
"Oh, look at the time!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Back in the Digital World, Archnemon and Mummymon disengaged from fighting the Chosen Children. As they pulled away, they saw BlackWarGreymon returning once more.  
"He's back." The spider witch said. "Mummymon, let's go!"  
"Okay!" The two of them got back in their car and got away from the Chosen Children.  
"Cowards!" Ross screamed at them as the Chosen started to catch up.  
"We've got some more important things to worry about, like destroying the five remaining Holy Stones!" Archnemon taunted them.

"What did she say?" Daisuke questioned.  
"There are five more Holy Stones." Takeru answered.  
"If they destroy them all…" Iori said.  
"The Digital World will lose more and more balance." informed Hikari.  
"And that means problems for Earth." Koushiro added.  
"This is what you were worried about right, Koushiro-san?" Ken asked him.  
"If the Digital World loses its balance completely… Something terrible will happen." Osamu concluded.  
"Then that means we need to draw a line in the sand and protect those stones." Ross determined.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Shuu and Takenouchi-san dropped me off not too far away from the meet up point.  
"Well then, say hi to Sora when you're back in Tokyo." The professor requested.  
"Jou too." Shuu also asked.  
"Okay! Leave it to me!" I then waved and ran back to my class.  
"You're late!" Enko shouted at me. "Where have you been?"  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Nowhere really…" I said.  
"Huh? What's that?" questioned Kaiya looked at Poromon.  
"Eh? Oh! It's just a stuffed animal!" I lied as I patted him on the head.  
"No way! How cute!"  
"Let me see!" The two of them grabbed him and started to tug, and he clearly was looking in distress.  
 _"_ _Hang in there, Poromon."_

I just hope the rest of this trip can go off without a hitch, or a Digimon incursion…

* * *

Let's just hope so, Miyako.

I've got almost nothing to say at all about this chapter surprisingly so I'll just say take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	40. Scars of Old! Defend the Holy Stone!

Here we are with another chapter.

Shoutout to **reyman15** and **dracofogg** for their reviews and follows. Been a month since we've gotten some fresh blood to this story.

Also shoutout to **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **Whiteling** for the reviews as well.

Anyways, let's keep going with the absolute carnage that is BlackWarGreymon.

* * *

 **Chapter 39: Scars of Old! Defend the Holy Stone!**

 _Digital World. October 26th, 2002. 1346 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A week after the encounter in Kyoto, all had mostly been somewhat quiet in the Digital World. Of course, it was an uneasy calm as the Chosen Children and BlackWarGreymon were both in a race to find the five remaining Holy Stones. If BlackWarGreymon continued to destroy them, the balance of the Digital World would fall apart and it would be assumed that all hell would soon break loose. In one of the many vast deserts of the Digital World, BlackWarGreymon was flying just above the ground in his never ending search to destroy the stones and end the pain that he had been suffering from.  
 _"_ _Why do I destroy those stones? No, it's those stones that call me."_ BlackWarGreymon thought to himself as he kept on flying.

Not too far behind him was Archnemon and Mummymon who were still keeping a close eye on him while trying to keep up in their Dune Buggy. They cared not what BlackWarGreymon was really doing; as long as he was destroying Holy Stones and causing great damage to the Digital World, it didn't matter if he no longer took orders from them.  
"There are only five Holy Stones left." Archnemon reminded Mummymon as the dunes were getting slightly bumpy.  
"I'm glad you're happy too, Archnemon." The mummy Digimon wasn't hiding his feelings for the spider witch too well. She merely rolled her eyes before turning to look at him after they hit a rough bump.  
"Watch your driving, will you?" The ground got really rocky as they hit hardened stones rather than sand. So much so they ended up driving off a cliff and nearly wrecked when they hit the ground. Still, the vehicle kept going, but the shock system was clearly destroyed at this point now.

 _Chosen HQ, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 26th, 2002. 1358 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

When Miyako sent us the message last week that she encounter BlackWarGreymon in Kyoto, it was quite a shock. She also mentioned running into Sora's dad and Jou's middle brother, but she said she would explain more when she got back today. The past hour we sat at Headquarters as she explained everything that had happened in greater detail as well as what she had learned; her overall school trip and the things she wanted to tell us earlier was more of an afterthought now.  
"Miyako's present is delicious!" Chibimon happily said as he, Poromon and Upamon were eating some yatsuhashi that Miyako brought back.  
"It's fresh yatsuhashi." Poromon explained to him.  
"It sure is fresh!" cried Upamon.  
"Hey you, don't eat it all!" Daisuke shouted at them. Clearly he wanted some as well.  
"I never expected to see BlackWarGreymon in Kyoto." Miyako continued to talk about the event that she witnessed.  
"But why did he appear there?" Iori questioned.

"Sora-san's father told me Kyoto is protected by the four holy animals. Also, it's close to other worlds, and evil spirits often appear." She held up her finger as she turned to Hikari and me. "So it seems that shrines were built on all four directions to protect the capital from these 'demon gates'." Boy, all that doesn't bode well for us.  
"Miyako-san, it's amazing…" Iori was truly impressed with her story while Daisuke returned to our area of the room with some yatsuhashi in his mouth. "You sure learned a lot on your school trip."She turned back around to Iori and gave him a proud smile.  
"For Digimon to appear in the Real World, the Digital World's distortion must be getting worse." I guessed, to which no one really liked that answer.  
"Yes." Hikari nodded with me.  
"I don't really understand what that 'distortion' is, though." Miyako inquired.

"Well, basically…" Hikari looked back to the computer and began moving the mouse. She drew a red line on a white screen. "This is the Digital World." She then drew a yellow line underneath the red. "And this is the Real World. The distortion happens when the worlds lose their balance and combine into one." She clicked a button and the two started to spiral around each other as they were beginning to merge.  
"As expected from Hikari-chan!" praised Daisuke. She leaned over the computer to look at her partner.  
"Tailmon taught me." Tailmon just gave a kind smile before Hikari went back to the computer and gained a serious face again. "And that ocean must be another world." Ugh, I wish we could just leave that damn place behind. We were there for only a short time but it's left too many bad memories I wish I could forget. Hikari soon drew a blue line underneath the yellow.  
"That's not all." I took the mouse from her. "I think there are other worlds we don't know about." I drew several more lines. "Like this."  
"It's like a rainbow." observed Miyako.  
"But when balance is lost…" The lines begin to swirl until the whole screen goes black.  
"Black." Hikari concluded.

"In the end, all of them could form a world of darkness. The Real and Digital Worlds too." Tailmon explained.  
"That's no joke!" Daisuke got a bit concerned.  
"To prevent that, we have to protect the Holy Stones no matter what." I said. We heard the door open up and saw Koushiro, Yamato and Gabumon at the door.  
"Hey!" The three of them said.  
"Izumi-senpai! I'm so glad you're here!" Miyako ran to her bag. "I brought you a souvenir!"  
"What? I didn't get anything?" Yamato gave her a playful smirk to her embarrassment.  
"Eh… I didn't know you wanted one…"  
"So, what are you doing here, Onii-chan?" I asked him.  
"Eh, I didn't really have anything going on today so I decided to give a hand."  
"Anything helps."  
"Anyways, I brought you all something good too." Koushiro told us as he opened up his laptop.  
"What is it?" Daisuke asked.  
"Anyone want to lend me their D-3 and D-Terminal?" Miyako handed him her things before he plugged them to his laptop. "I set up a program on the D-Terminal to detect the distortion." The blank screen on Miyako's screens soon turned to a grid and showed a red dot in the center.

"That's great, Koushiro-san! Now we'll know where BlackWarGreymon is." I thanked him.  
"We're trying to support you as best as we can right now."  
"Thank you so much, senpai!" Miyako shouted.  
"If we were able to evolve to Perfect, we'd be of better help." Yamato admitted.  
"It's fine, we'll find a way." Hikari said.  
"Okay, let's get going!" Daisuke declared.  
"Oh, wait… I need to call Ken-kun and Osamu-san." Hikari informed.  
"You don't have to tell them."  
"Let's go, Daisuke!" Miyako then held her D-3 to the screen. "Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let's roll!" Once we got to the Digital World, we found ourselves in a vast desert with almost nothing in sight except for sand.  
"Which way, Miyako-san?" I asked her.  
"That way." She pointed after looking at her D-Terminal.  
"Let's go!" We all soon headed out the direction she pointed.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

While the Chosen Children had successfully tracked down BlackWarGreymon, they unfortunately lost their race against him as he soon found the third Holy Stone atop some large ruins. His eyes locked on it while the Chosen all got on their Digimon and raced towards the area as fast as they could, unaware of their already failed goal.  
"We're getting close!" Miyako shouted as Monodramon and Stingmon soon joined them in the race, and on them were their human partners.  
"Daisuke!" Ken called out to him.  
"Ken!"  
"Where's BlackWarGreymon?" questioned Osamu.  
"He's close… apparently just ahead of us!" Yamato informed. "Faster, Garurumon, faster!"

"Gaia Force!" The whole stairwell where the Holy Stone sat was destroyed but somehow the stone was still intact and floating in the air, as Archnemon and Mummymon watched from a distance. "Gaia Force!" BlackWarGreymon threw two more of his devastating attack and soon the Holy Stone exploded into dust.  
"The third one is gone too." Archnemon sounded pleased with herself as she witness the destruction. To everyone's surprise though, as soon as the stone was destroyed, a bright green beam of light appeared. In it, there appeared a strange long blue dragon like creature that looked to be in pain as it was caught in chains.  
"What is that?" BlackWarGreymon questioned the appearance of the creature in absolute shock. "I feel some immense power." Almost as soon as it appeared, the light and the creature vanished, leaving behind only the smoldering ruins of where the Holy Stone once stood.  
"It disappeared." Archnemon sat back down in the Dune Buggy.  
 _"_ _Is it him? Is he my real opponent?"_ BlackWarGreymon thought to himself. He then screamed out in rage before turning around and walking away; now even more hell-bent on finding the next Holy Stone.

"What the hell was that?" Mummymon wondered as he now stood up in the Dune Buggy.  
"Who knows?" dismissed Archnemon.  
"Hey…" Mummymon sat back down. "When we break those stones, what if something we can't even imagine happens?"  
"I don't know… I can imagine quite a bit. Just shut up and let's move."  
"Right…" Mummymon sounded much nervous now as he looked back ahead to the ruins. He turned around and drove away leaving the Chosen Children alone to observed the carnage that was left behind by the Ultimate Digimon.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

When we got to the ruins, we could see that we were once again too late. BlackWarGreymon destroyed another Holy Stone which meant there was now only four remaining; and we were no closer to even slowing down the rampaging Digimon.  
"The Holy Stone…" Daisuke muttered.  
"So we didn't make it." Ken sighed in defeat.  
"What now?" Miyako questioned. "At this rate, BlackWarGreymon is going to destroy them all…"  
"We can't let that happen!" Takeru growled as he tightened his fist. "A Digimon born from Dark Towers is distorting the Digital World with the power of darkness! We just can't let that happen!" I noticed Takeru's reactions and quickly recalled that I had seen this another time.  
 _"_ _He was upset like this once before."_ I thought. I remember back to shortly before Chimairamon was unleashed; when we had first broken into Osamu's base. Takeru had thrown his hat down and stormed away, while Ross told me to ignore him and focus on freeing the rest of the Digimon prisoners from the dungeon.

"Okay, to get a head start on BlackWarGreymon, we'll ask the Digimon around here to help us find where the remaining Holy Stones are." I came back to the present as Takeru started giving out orders.  
"Good idea." Osamu agreed with him. "If we can just get to a stone first, then we might actually stand a chance of holding him back."  
"Well, then… I'll go find Tentomon and see if he's found anything." Garurumon said.  
"Alright then, take care of yourself, Garurumon." Yamato patted his side as the wolf took off.  
"You gonna be able to help us again, Onii-chan?" Takeru asked him.  
"Sorry… me and my band are practicing for a big gig we've got coming up. Today was really the only day I could've helped fight. But, if I know Garurumon, he can still be of help to you guys and find a Holy Stone."  
"Thanks, Onii-san." Takeru gave him a smile. I walked forward to rejoin the rest of the ground, but I kept my eyes on Takeru.  
 _"_ _The usual, calm Takeru-san… the angry Takeru-san… Which one is the real Takeru-san?"_

"See you, Hikari-chan!" Miyako waved at both Hikari and Daisuke as they ran towards their apartment building. Yamato had left shortly before then so it just left me, Takeru and Miyako together as we all went back to our apartment complex.  
"We'll do our best tomorrow too!" Daisuke gave out one more cry of encouragement before he was out of earshot range. Miyako and Takeru began walking towards the apartment while I just stood still.  
"Huh?" Takeru noticed. "Iori-kun, you got practice?" I quickly turned to him.  
"Yes. Excuse me." I bowed before running a different direction.  
"You said you didn't have practice today, dagyaa…" Upamon said as we got away from them and started to walk once more. "Iori, what's wrong, dagyaa?" I stopped and sighed.  
"Daisuke-san, Ken-san, Miyako-san and Hikari-san… Even Ross-san and Ichijouji-san… That all means that I'm supposed to Jogress with Takeru-san."  
"Good things come to those who wait, dagyaa!" Upamon gave some surprising words of wisdom.  
"But I don't understand Takeru-san. Can I Jogress with him like that?"  
"You'll be fine, dagyaa! Just concentrate like in kendo, dagyaa!" He began to bounce in my arms. "Iori, teach me kendo too! I want to increase my ability to concentrate, dagyaa!" I chuckled and held him up. "Men! Dou! Concentration, dagyaa!"

 _Takaishi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. October 27th, 2002. 0113 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

I quickly woke up in a cold sweat as I suffered a nightmare in my sleep. The details were a bit blurry, but I distinctly remember seeing BlackWarGreymon striking down Angemon… and him not getting back up. In fact, he exploded into data and didn't return. That prospect is what truly terrified me at the moment. So far, we can't even seem to slow down that Ultimate and he just continues to destroy the Digital World. I took a deep breath and rolled over to see Patamon still quietly asleep with a smile on his face. Well, hope you're at least dreaming better than I am, buddy. I gave his cheek a little rub before I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. Hopeful, I can just have a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night. Certainly better than what I was dreaming before.

 _Digital World. October 27th, 2002. 1421 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

Our pursuit of BlackWarGreymon took us to quite a magnificent looking part of the Digital World. It was an area of high rocky ravines overlooking raging rivers of water and mist that looked very picturesque. We soon began to cross one ravine along a rocky wood and rope bridge. Of our group, Daisuke, Hikari and Miyako were the last ones to cross. Daisuke ran up to us while Hikari was looking more nervous.  
"Hikari-chan!" Daisuke held out his hand for her. She soon fell forward and he ran towards her to catch her… but Miyako was already there to keep her from falling over, much to Daisuke's disappointment.  
"Hikari-chan, are you okay?" Miyako asked her. She nodded. "Okay, let's go."  
"I wonder if the Digimon found the Holy Stones." Hikari said.  
"Let's split up and ask." Tailmon suggested.  
"Yeah!" "I agree." V-mon and Hawkmon chimed in.  
"Will Ross-san be joining us today?" Osamu wondered.  
"He said he has to do something for the school today but will try to be done as fast as possible, then he's got to find Guilmon but he'll try to meet with us." Hikari explained.

Everybody split their own ways leaving me alone with Takeru.  
"Let's go, Iori-kun." He said.  
"Yes."  
"Hey!" We turned back ahead and saw Gabumon running towards us across the bridge. "Takeru, there's a Holy Stone in the ravine across that mountain." He told us as he pointed down the path Hikari and Miyako took.  
"Thanks." Takeru gave his praise. "You came all the way here to tell us?"  
"Well, Tentomon told me so I came here while he went out looking for any others. Also…" He got a bit quiet.  
"What?"  
"Well, it's something Agumon told me…"  
"Eh?"  
"That BlackWarGreymon has a soul."

Those words came as a surprise to us. BlackWarGreymon having a soul? Could it really be possible?  
"A soul?" I questioned aloud. "Even though he's a Digimon born from Dark Towers?"  
"Agumon said he looked distressed about a lot of things… Wondering why he has a soul when he's not a living being."  
"But… then, why does he fight us and destroy the Holy Stones?"  
"I don't know."  
"But… if he has a soul, we can't destroy him." I felt the hesitation creeping up on me again. "We can't do something like that…" I turned to Armadimon.  
"Iori…"  
"No, we have to destroy BlackWarGreymon." I turned back to Takeru. His eyes were closed but the look on his face and the tone of his voice clearly sounded like yesterday. "As long as he was born to increase the power of darkness." Once again, I questioned him. All this anger and rage… Is this the true Takeru or not?

"Take care!" Gabumon waved to the others. We all regrouped and told them about the Holy Stone and now they were all on their flying Digimon going towards it. Osamu and Monodramon were riding with Hikari because Strikedramon couldn't fly. Meanwhile, Takeru was staying with me because I had to walk the way to the stone. Digmon could fly… but it was more of a sort of gliding, not a true flight with his small wings.  
"Let's go." Takeru told me.  
"I'm sorry. You could have gone with them on Pegasmon…"  
"It's okay." He gave me a smile. "See you, Gabumon." He was going to head out and rejoin the search for the stones.  
"Take care." He evolved back into Garurumon and took off once more.  
"Iori-kun, are you okay?" Takeru asked me as we walked up along the rocky path.  
"Y-yes."  
"Right, kendo keeps you in shape." He then started to walk ahead of me again.  
 _"_ _The Takeru-san who worries about me… The Takeru-san who would destroy BlackWarGreymon even if he had a soul… Are there two different people inside Takeru-san?"_ I thought to myself.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Sorry we're late!" Ross shouted as he and Waibanmon joined up with the others in the air.  
"Just in time, Ross-san!" Daisuke told him as they all flew into a ravine and found a diamond shaped stone with a gold band around it at the end of the ravine. They had indeed found the Holy Stone. The children dismounted their Digimon and looked around. "This time we found it first."  
"Where's BlackWarGreymon?" Ken asked.  
"He's coming!" Miyako shouted as Waibanmon devolved back to Guilmon. The Chosen Children all got ready for the big fight that was coming.

"Ken!" Daisuke turned to his Jogress partner.  
"Jogress. Let's go!"  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!" Nefertimon devolved back to Tailmon as Miyako got next to Hikari.  
"Hikari-chan, ready?" She asked.  
"Yes, Miyako-san!"  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress Evolve! SILPHYMON!" Guilmon and Monodramon evolved into their Adult-Forms while their partners looked at each other.  
"Osamu?" Ross questioned.  
"Don't worry, I'm on it!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!"

All three Digimon flew forward as soon as BlackWarGreymon entered the ravine. The three Jogress Digimon managed to get an ambush on them, but it still wouldn't be easy.  
"Desperado Blaster!" The rain of fire that Paildramon gave off blasted all around the Ultimate Digimon, but none actually got a hit. BlackWarGreymon landed as the fire soon stopped. The three Digimon also landed and stood in front of him.  
"Get out of my way!" BlackWarGreymon gave them one warning.  
"We won't." Paildramon answered. "We won't let you destroy any more Holy Stones! Esgrima!" His hand spikes glowed and he went down to try to impale the smaller BlackWarGreymon. The Dark Tower Digimon simply deflected them with his Dramon Destroyers before taking a step back.  
"You won't distort the balance of the Digital World any further." Silyphymon's body glowed. "Dual Sonic!" The energy field around her shot forward and struck BlackWarGreymon in the chest and sent him crashing against the ravine wall.  
"Either give up now or be destroyed!" MechaRaptormon gave him an ultimatum. "Molten Breath!" BlackWarGreymon was engulfed in the white hot lava that he shot out.  
"Exactly. Top Gun!" Silyphymon's second attack went towards him, but he jumped out of the way.

The Digimon regrouped once more, they're bodies stood between Holy Stone and BlackWarGreymon, who actually had a few scratches on his armor, but nothing that really would slow him down.  
"Why don't you get out of my way?" He questioned the defending Digimon. A moment later, Archnemon and Mummymon in their Digimon forms jumped down in between the two groups.  
"BlackWarGreymon, you don't have to bother with them." She told him.  
"We'll take care of them!" Mummymon got off her back and cocked his rifle at the Jogress Digimon before firing at Silphymon and causing her to take cover behind a rock. The mummy evilly chuckled at the fact that he scared her. His joy was interrupted as he was wrapped around by one of Paildramon's cables and sent crashing into the ravine wall. Silphymon left her cover and started to deliver a wave of close combat moves against Archnemon. However, that left the stone open to BlackWarGreymon who stepped forward, only to be blocked by MechaRaptormon.  
"I'll take you on myself if I have to." The large Digimon told the dark warrior as they soon clashed, though without any support, it was a losing battle for the Jogress Digimon.

"This is bad…" Daisuke expressed some worry.  
"Even though we got here first…" Ken said.  
"Hold for as long as you can, MechaRaptormon!" Osamu shouted to his Digimon.  
"Paildramon, Silphymon! Deal with those bastards quick!" Ross ordered as they tried to deal with their distractions. Paildramon opened fired on Mummymon and sent him flying. Meanwhile, Archnemon was tossed away but soon Silphymon was wrapped up in Mummymon's Snake Bandage and struck in the head. She was soon on the ground with him standing on her back and his gun pointed up against her head.  
"You…" Paildramon turned back to them before Archnemon crawled back up.  
"BlackWarGreymon, do as you want!" BlackWarGreymon quickly dealt with MechaRaptormon and threw him to the ground before turning his attention back towards the Holy Stone.  
"If this keeps going, another Holy Stone will…!" Miyako panicked.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"Takeru-kun!" We heard Hikari's voice yell out and we suddenly looked below. Somehow we missed everything. MechaRaptormon was down, Paildramon and Silphymon were having their hands tied with Archnemon and Mummymon, the others were in cover and BlackWarGreymon was heading right for the Holy Stone.  
"Patamon!" He shouted.  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"  
"Armadimon!" I turned to him.  
"Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!"  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" Angemon flew down towards him.  
"Dramon Killer!" BlackWarGreymon struck Angemon in the chest and knocked him into the Holy Stone.  
"Angemon!" Takeru cried as BlackWarGreymon sprinted up and was brutally beating Angemon with his fists!

"And he has a soul!?" I questioned as we got down to the bottom of the ravine. Angemon was sent to the ground before BlackWarGreymon picked him up by the throat and began strangling the life out of him. Ankylomon tried to help but BlackWarGreymon's free hand struck him out of the way and into the wall. "Even in this situation, we still can't Jogress…" I feared.  
"Unforgivable… Unforgivable…" I looked to Takeru and saw the most angry and hate filled look on his face that I had ever seen. I don't even think Osamu gave a look like that even when he was the Kaiser. It was actually really intimidating. "Terror, hatred… Shock, darkness… Trying to change the world with that power… Trying to conquer the world… It's unforgivable!" He shouted so loud that everyone could hear it.  
"Takeru…" Angemon choked out. "I can feel it too… He's the one we have to defeat no matter what!" BlackWarGreymon threw him once more into the Holy Stone and it suddenly began to glow a bright blue.  
"Jogress…! No!" Takeru yelled as Angemon glowed.

"Angemon, super-evolve! HOLYANGEMON!"  
"HolyAngemon…?" I whispered. Somehow, Angemon was able to evolve to his Perfect-Level even though the others gave up that power years ago. Perhaps there was even more to the stones then we thought.  
"He evolve to Perfect-Level…" Takeru was just as surprised. HolyAngemon glowed brightly which blinded Mummymon.  
"Now!" Paildramon struck him and got Silphymon back up.  
"Top Gun!" The attacks of the two Jogress Digimon caused Archnemon and Mummymon to run away.  
"Go for it, HolyAngemon!" Takeru ordered.  
"I feel the consciousness of darkness." HolyAngemon stood his ground as BlackWarGreymon took a step closer to him and the Holy Stone. "You should not exist in this Digital World!" Those words clearly upset BlackWarGreymon.  
"What? I don't remember needing your permission to exist!"  
"I heard you have a soul, which Dark Tower Digimon are not supposed to have. But as long as you were created to use the power of darkness… I will destroy you!"

BlackWarGreymon got ready for a fight while a beam sword ignited out of HolyAngemon's arm. He then made a circle in front of him.  
"Heaven's Gate!" A bright gate opened up and a large wind began to blow as HolyAngemon tried to strike BlackWarGreymon in the head with his sword, only to be blocked by his hands. "Darkness returns to darkness!" The gate soon moved behind BlackWarGreymon and he began to get sucked in.  
"I'm not going to give up here!" He roared. "Gaia Force!" He threw his attack towards the Holy Stone and destroyed it! The gate suddenly closed and BlackWarGreymon was freed from its pull as HolyAngemon devolved back to Patamon.  
"I'm sorry, Takeru. Another Holy Stone…" Takeru said nothing as he picked him up and just smiled at him. Our attention was soon turned to the ruins of the Holy Stone as we saw a green light and some large blue creature inside it.  
"What's that?" "Huh?" "A Digimon?" "Nothing I've seen…" "Looks imprisoned." "And it's suffering…" The others all observed before it vanished and BlackWarGreymon yelled in anger before he flew away.

Our mood was pretty sour when we returned to the bridge. Miyako tripped forward as we walked across and Daisuke caught her… though we were all pretty sure he wanted to catch Hikari.  
"Thanks…" She told him.  
"What's up with that? Don't use that confused tone!"  
"Take it easy, Daisuke." said V-mon.  
"Let's go, Iori-kun." Takeru began to walk along the bridge.  
"Takeru-san." I spoke up.  
"Yeah?"  
"Why do you hate the power of darkness so much?"  
"I don't hate the power of darkness itself." He didn't say anything more as Daisuke started to rock the bridge.

"Takeru!" He yelled out. "Hurry up!" He laughed.  
"Don't act like a brat!" Miyako chastised him.  
"I'm sorry…"  
"Eh, besides, with this kind of bridge, there's only one thing you can do." Ross chuckled before he held his hands up like he was holding something. "{Mola Ram! Prepare to meet Kali… in Hell!}" Hikari burst out laughing as he did that, though most of us didn't even understand what he said. Takeru walked forward once more.  
"Hurry up, Iori-kun." He said. I nodded and walked forward. I honestly thought that I had Takeru figured out… but recent events have changed that thought.

One thing is for sure, I'm gonna get some answers about it at least…

* * *

Come on! You think that Ross would pass up a _**Temple of Doom**_ reference?

Also, two things, one, I love how angry Takeru gets with BlackWarGreymon. As awesome as it was to see HolyAngemon again, I still think it would've been cooler if we could've had Angemon Dark Evolve into NeoDevimon or something like that. Eh, oh, well.

The second thing is that even with three Jogress Digimon, the kids are still coming up short. I gave the hint that they do have the firepower now to hold back BlackWarGreymon, but they don't have the strength to take the abuse... they're gonna need a Digimon that can be strong on the defensive… now who could that be?

Anyways, that's all I got to say for this one, take care and see you next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	41. Rampage in the Waves!

The fight continues!

Shoutout to **LEAF skelton** for the follow, thanks a lot.

And thanks to **DigimonAT0318** , **Whiteling** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **GreenD109** for the reviews. Oh, to answer your question, Green, the Old Breed Digimon are so experienced evolving now that they don't technically need their human partners to reach Adult... but that's as far as they can go.

With all that out of the way, let's continue.

* * *

 **Chapter 40: Unrelenting Assault! Rampage in the Waves!**

 _Digital World. November 2nd, 2002. 1623 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

The fight against BlackWarGreymon has not been going well. We've lost four Holy Stones and have only three left to defend. Today we were in an icy region where we were defending another one. Ross said he was on the lead for another one of the stones so we were understrength once again. Sora and Mimi were offering their help though so they were out here with us as waited for the Ultimate Digimon to arrive. We looked up towards the cliff overlooking us where several Mojyamon were running away. We quickly saw the reason when Mummymon opened fire on them. Archnemon wasn't too far behind him and she evilly chuckled with him. The Mojyamon threw their Hone Hone Boomerangs but Archnemon simply brushed them away.  
"You think your petty attacks will work on me?" She taunted them. She then used her Acid Mist attack and completely crippled them.  
"Where did you hide the Holy Stone?" Mummymon demanded. "Now, tell u-"  
"Meteor Wing!" Birdramon's attack blew him backwards into the snow.  
"Chiku-Chiku Bang Bang!" Togemon's needles sprayed into Archnemon which gave the Mojyamon time to retreat. Their job was now done.

"Are you the ones who told the Mojyamon to keep quiet?" Archnemon asked us as Paildramon and Silphymon got in front of Togemon, Birdramon and the rest of us. "Where is the Holy Stone?"  
"Who knows? I'm not so stupid to tell you." Daisuke informed. Everyone's eyes widened when we heard a loud banging noise back on the ridge.  
"Uh-oh…" Mimi muttered.  
"I think he's here." feared Sora. We continued to look on the ridge and soon saw BlackWarGreymon walking forward.  
"Everyone, be careful!" Patamon advised.  
"Holy Stone…" He spoke in a low tone. "I can sense this bad aura no matter where you hide it. Gaia Force!" He charged up his devastating attack and threw it out right near where Archnemon and Mummymon were… and right where we buried the stone under the snow. The attack melted away all the snow that covered it and exposed it to the unstoppable Digimon.

"No way! He blew up that mountain of snow!" Miyako cried as the two Jogress Digimon flew up to combat him.  
"Desperado Blaster!" BlackWarGreymon jumped up and avoided the attack.  
"Gaia Force!" Paildramon had to dodge the attack that flew right at him, but he was never the target; the Holy Stone beneath him was the true objective. The gold band around the stone exploded and soon the stone began glowing a blue light. We could see the silhouette of that Digimon from last week shining from it.  
"That's…" Daisuke gasped.  
"That Digimon again…" I finished his sentence.  
"There you are." BlackWarGreymon stepped forward and stared directly at the stone. "Just wait. I will defeat you!" Wait, was he destroying the stones so he could fight that Digimon? "Gaia Force!" One more strike and the stone was destroyed. "I'm one step closer to him. I'm almost there!" He shouted before running a few steps then taking off to the skies.

"That guy becomes stronger every time he breaks a Holy Stone…" Mummymon observed. If that's the case, then our job is getting even harder. He then turned to us and cocked his rifle. "Shall we finish off these annoying pests?"  
"As tempting as it is, and how I truly desire it; we don't have time. This whole area is about to crumble and we need to follow BlackWarGreymon!" Archnemon turned around and started to flee from the area.  
"Okay… but one little shot!" He fired at us causing us all to duck for cover as he manically cackled before following after her.  
"Dammit, he got us again!" Daisuke punched the ground as we all got back up. Paildramon and Silphymon devolved back to their normal forms. "We can't beat him no matter what we do." Lightning soon began to crack in the sky, indicating that the area was indeed falling apart.  
"We can sulk later! Let's get out of here now!" Takeru shouted. We grabbed our Digimon and soon began running towards the nearby TV as the wind picked up and ice was being sucked into a large black vortex in the sky. It really began to pick up as we got to the TV and soon were sent back to the Real World, probably in the nick of time.

"That was a close one…" Sora admitted as we all caught our breath at the so called 'Chosen HQ'. Ken explained to me it was the place they always went when they were combating me. I have to admit, that was a smart move on their part, considering before they met up at the computer lab of one of Odaiba's elementary school'.  
"But he broke another Holy Stone…" Mimi expressed disappointment. "Sorry we couldn't be of much help." She and Sora headed out of the headquarters first. Both of them had some plans tomorrow so they couldn't be able to help again.  
"It's okay, Mimi-san… we appreciate the help." Iori informed her. A few moments later, Ross, Taichi and their Digimon came out of the computer as they returned to the Real World.  
"Hey… how did things go?" Taichi asked.  
"What do you think?" Daisuke grumbled and the two of them got the answer. "Where the hell were you anyways!?" Daisuke angrily confronted Ross.  
"Finding us some help… trying to get as much extra firepower as we could get against BlackWarGreymon." Ross calmly answered which diffused Daisuke pretty quick.  
"Oh…"  
"It's fine… it's not like MechaRaptormon could've made much of a difference today anyways." I sadly stated.

"I can't believe we can't win even with three Jogress Evolutions." Hikari said as we all walked outside the warehouse.  
"Dammit!" Daisuke cursed once more as he kicked a can. "Damn BlackWarGreymon…"  
"Yeah… he's way too strong. It's just not fair!" Miyako sighed.  
"Just be lucky he isn't going after us like the Dark Masters. We'd be in some serious trouble if that was the case." Taichi reminded.  
"It's unforgivable." Takeru repeated those words he said last Sunday during our fight with BlackWarGreymon. "Creating a sad life using the power of darkness… it's unforgivable." Is he upset with BlackWarGreymon or Archnemon. I think now I realize he was probably really upset at me when I created Chimairamon. Certainly would explain how different of a person he was when he confronted and beat me up that day. _"Unforgivable… Unforgivable… Terror, hatred… Shock, darkness… Trying to change the world with that power… Trying to conquer the world… It's unforgivable!"_ I recalled those words he said before. It looks like everyone else expect Taichi did too, especially Iori who is giving Takeru quite the look right now. Don't know what that's really all about. "I'll never forgive them!" concluded Takeru. We all stood still in silence after that.

"Well, we'll be going now." Ken finally spoke up.  
"Oh, right. I always forget you and Osamu-san live in Tamachi." Miyako remembered.  
"Yeah, we need to head home before Mom and Dad think I've run away again." I decided to crack a small joke which cause Ross to laugh hard. "Well, at least someone liked it." I said under my breath. "Goodbye." Ken, Monodramon and I turned and started to walk back to Tamachi.  
"Wait, Ken, Ichijouji-san." Daisuke spoke up. "Either of you guys want to have dinner at my place?" He offered causing us both to turn around. "Listen, I want to beat BlackWarGreymon no matter what. Surely you guys have some kind of idea?"  
"I want to defeat BlackWarGreymon too. And I can't forgive Archnemon either." I said.  
"And well… We have been thinking and talking lately about all this…" Ken explained. "See, we've come to the conclusion that we do have the strength to actually beat BlackWarGreymon… it's just we're coming up short in terms of fighting him long enough to do it."  
"So what you're saying is we've got the offence… but we could use a major boost in defense, right?" Ross guessed.  
"Exactly."

"See! I knew you guys could think of something!" Daisuke got excited. "Okay, so tomorrow's Sunday, so let's have a meeting at my place!"  
"That sounds good." Ken nodded. "I'll call my mother, then." I was a little more apprehensive to that though.  
"Um, not to say I don't want to… but…"  
"It would be kind of weird to spend the night over at someone's house who's three years your junior and don't actually really know, at least as far as your parents know." Taichi figured it surprisingly fast which caused me to nod to.  
"Well, it would be a bit strange… but there wouldn't be as much problems if you spent the night at our place." Ross offered. "Plus… tonight Dad is making chicken-fried steak with rice and gravy! Osamu… you take one bite and you will fall in love with Southern cooking." Well, I say that's a more logical work around. I then nodded again.  
"Okay, then, I take you up on that offer, Ross-kun."  
"Alright, it's set!" Daisuke pumped his fist.

"I'll go later too!" Miyako informed.  
"Me too!" Hikari chimed in, much to Daisuke's joy.  
"R-really, Hikari-chan? You're coming over? Okay then, we'll all meet at my place after dinner."  
"Okay." The girls answered.  
"And Osamu will stick around with Taichi and I." Ross said. Sounds like a plan.  
"Sorry, but I can't." Takeru told us. "See you!" He started to run off.  
"Same here. I'm sorry." Iori apologize as he followed him. _"Why does Takeru-san get so upset regarding the power of darkness?"_ He thought to himself.  
"Hey, wait! Don't we live in the same building?" Miyako quickly recalled.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Hello? Ichijouji family." I heard Mom's voice on the other end of the phone as I called the apartment from a payphone.  
"Hey, Mom, it's Ken."  
"Ah, Ken-chan?"  
"Hey, listen, both Onii-san and I got invited by some friends for dinner tonight, can we go? Onii-san is with me by the way."  
"Really? Friends invited you?" I chuckled.  
"Come on, Mom, don't say that… it sounds weird. We do have friends. Listen, we'll be home late, but…"  
"It's okay. Have fun you two." Was she… crying? I know we've had our problems for years, but… "And next time, we'll invite your friends over to our place." She then hung up. Both Osamu and I looked at each other.  
"Didn't really know how much that meant to her." He said.  
"Just goes to prove how normal we've become I guess." He chuckled.  
"Normal wouldn't really be the best way to describe us… considering the worm on your shoulder and this dragon that follows me around. Both Wormmon and Monodramon gave a chuckle as well.  
"We wouldn't have it any other way." They both told us at the same time.

"Thank you for having me over." I bowed before Daisuke's parents who were in their living room along with his sister Jun. We had Wormmon and Chibimon hidden in my bag considering they didn't know about the Digimon. Think Osamu will have a different reception.  
"Well, this is Ichijouji Ken. But I don't think he needs an introduction. Besides, you guys already know that we hang out." Daisuke explained.  
"I still can't believe Daisuke is friends with one of the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi!" Jun sounded excited and Daisuke's parents looked.  
"Um, if it's not too much to ask, but could you please at least forget that I'm a local celebrity and just be treated like one of Daisuke's friends?" I requested. They nodded, but it was clear they were really straining to do that. It's gonna be a bit of a night.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I had been putting it off all week but tonight seemed as good as any night to get the answers I needed about Takeru and his anger towards the forces of darkness. And there really was only one person I knew who could probably answer these questions other than directly asking Takeru. I found one of Yamato's band members as they were practicing and asked him if I could talk to Yamato.  
"Hey, Ishida! You have a visitor!" He shouted as he walked away.  
"A visitor?" He walked out and then saw me. "Oh, Iori-kun."  
"Hello, Yamato-san." I bowed. "I need to talk with you."  
"Sure… give me a moment..." He walked to a vending machine. "You want something to drink?"  
"Yes, please."

After he gave me a drink, I went into detail about my questions about Takeru and explaining what had been happening while he wasn't around.  
"I see… so when the Digimon Kaiser created Chimairamon, Takeru got that mad?"  
"Yes." I rubbed Upamon's head as he ate a snack and I finished my drink.  
"Well… he never told me about it after we won." I then stood up.  
"And now it's BlackWarGreymon. Takeru-san hates Archnemon for creating unfortunate lives using the power of darkness."  
"The power of darkness and life, huh…"  
"I'm sure something must have happened to him in the past. I want to know more about Takeru-san."  
"Yeah…" He crushed his can. "Something sure happened." Yamato sighed before he walked over to the room his band had been practicing and pulled out a chair before sitting down.  
"I'll never forget it. It was during the final battle with our first enemy, Devimon. We told you new Chosen Children about that didn't we?"  
"Yes, you did."

"Well, there was one part about that story we omitted. You see, Devimon increased his dark power to the point where… okay, we said we just won but barely. Actually the truth was that no one could defeat him, until Angemon did… By sacrificing his own life. That was Patamon's first time evolving into the Adult-Level. So their first meeting became a farewell. Takeru took care of the Digiegg his Digimon reverted to… To meet Patamon once again. Takeru learned how terrifying the power of darkness is and how precious life is from Angemon." Now… things made a lot more sense now.  
"Seeing his Digimon partner die with his own eyes… Now that I think about it, Ichijouji-san and Monodramon too…"  
"Yeah. Takeru and Ichijouji-kun have gone through the same experience. That's why they can't forgive those who play at creating life though the power of darkness."  
"I understand." I looked down to Upamon. "If that happened to Upamon, I would also…"  
"We all feel that way about our Digimon partners."  
"Thanks to you, I think I understand now. I apologize for interrupting your band practice." I bowed once more and ran back home.  
 _"_ _I didn't know that happened to Takeru…"_ Yamato thought to himself.

"What's wrong, dagyaa?" Upamon asked me as we walked back to the apartment.  
"Do we really need to destroy BlackWarGreymon?" I wondered.  
"Iori…"  
"I understand how Takeru-san feels, and I know it will be bad if the Holy Stones are destroyed, but…" I looked out to the bay as we were walking along it.  
"You're hesitant because he's suffering for having a soul he wasn't supposed to have?" I said nothing and just started to walk once more. "Iori, you're too kind, dagyaa."

 _Takaishi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. November 2nd, 2002. 1931 Hours.  
P.O.V. - Takeru Takaishi_

It was certainly surprising to get a call from Yamato at this hour; it was even more surprising about what he told me. Iori was curious about my more recent outbursts so he went to Yamato to find out why. He just finished telling me what he told Iori.  
"Yeah, I understand. Thanks for telling me, Onii-chan. Bye."  
"See you later." We both hung up. I walked out to the porch and looked out towards the city.  
"He could have just asked me instead of going to my brother." I said to myself. I listened to the sounds of the city; dogs barking, traffic horns. I leaned over the rail and looked down to see Iori walking on the sidewalk to the door. "But that's… just like Iori-kun." I smiled.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"He's destroyed five Holy Stones already." Miyako said as we were all talking about what to do next. It was myself, Miyako, Ken and Daisuke with our Digimon in Daisuke's room with a phone on speaker so my brothers and Osamu could speak too. It would be kind of suspicions to Daisuke's family if Osamu also showed up and hung around rather than just simply picking up Ken.  
"There are only two left." I sighed.  
"We have to protect them!" determined Tailmon.  
"That's what we've been trying to do, but that damn beast has got us outmatched in all fields." Ross admitted.  
"So does anyone have a really solid plan for stopping him?" Taichi asked.  
"Tentomon and the rest are still searching for the remaining Holy Stones." Poromon explained.  
"And we've certainly gathered a good amount of allies to assist when we do find the next one." Guilmon added.  
"As long as we find them first, I think we could be able to do something." Osamu believed.

"Well, it's really no good unless we get more firepower." Daisuke nodded.  
"But then that's what Ross-san has been doing all week, right? Finding allies to help fight?" Ken questioned.  
"Yeah. Got a bunch… can't really hurt." Ross said.  
"Leave it to Ross-chan to find an army." I giggled.  
"She laughing at me?"  
"Well, she does make a point." We could hear Taichi now laughing.  
"Relax, man. Anyways, we should go to the Digital World first thing tomorrow morning!" determined Daisuke.

 _Digital World. November 3rd, 2002. 0543 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"I want to fight!" BlackWarGreymon roared as he smashed a large bolder that was in his way. "Those who are stronger… Someone who can put up a fight!" He growled as he walked along the Digital World as the sun began to rise up. "Where is it? Where is the next Holy Stone!?" He questioned as he walked into a field of Dark Towers. One of which he just walked right though it like it was nothing. He then began taking his aggression out on multiple others that were in his way.  
"Seriously… the Dark Towers I just built…" Archnemon moaned as she and Mummymon drove up right near him.  
"Stop, BlackWarGreymon!" Mummymon shouted at him. "Calm down! I said calm down!"  
"Shut up! Don't order me around!" They drove past him as he kicked a large bolder and it headed right for the Dune Buggy.  
"Watch out!" Archnemon shouted and Mummymon quickly swerved to get out of the way. It caused the car to spin out of control across the rough terrain until they crashed into a rock and BlackWarGreymon ran ahead.

"He's totally lost it." Mummymon muttered as he was laying on top of Archnemon.  
"Get off me!" She shoved him away. "BlackWarGreymon is just like a newborn baby!" She growled. "A big baby who cries because he can't find his toy."  
"I see, a baby…" A sly smile crossed his face. "So, he'd be our child?"  
"Make that connection again… and I don't care if you are useful; I'll kill you in a heartbeat!"  
"Yes… Archnemon…" He sounded disappointed.  
"Go after him!"  
"Yes, ma'am." He complied and they drove right back after the Dark Tower Ultimate.  
"Don't you get it!?" She slapped him in the back of the head. "Even if he destroys all the Holy Stones, it's worthless if he doesn't leave a Dark Tower standing!"  
"Well, yeah, that's why I tried to stop him…" They caught back up.  
"I can feel it…" BlackWarGreymon muttered. "This way!" He jumped across a large canyon and the car was force to stop on the canyon edge.  
"I give up." Mummymon said as they got out. "There's nothing we can do now."  
"Hasn't he realized yet… the reason why he was born?"

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

I felt the sun shining on my face as it slowly woke me up. For a moment, I didn't recognize where I was until I looked over and remembered that I had spent the night at Daisuke's house. He still looked fast asleep. Wormmon quickly woke up and then jumped on Chibimon.  
"You awake?" He asked.  
"Why you…" The two of them started to play around with each other. The loud noise woke up Daisuke who had a grumpy look on his face.  
"Shut up! Lemme sleep a little more…" He threw his covers over him as the two Digimon laughed. I just chuckled at the scene I saw.  
"Daisuke!" We heard a knock on his bedroom door. It was Jun on the other side. "You got a call from Hikari-chan." Daisuke bolted up.  
"Hikari-chan!?"

When we got to the Digital World, we were quickly informed about what was going on. Ikkakumon had found the sixth Holy Stone and all the allies we had looked for had gathered around the edge of the sea. The Holy Stone was several hundred yards under the waves. Jou and Iori would lead the sea forces, those including MegaSeadramon and some dolphin like Digimon called Rukamon. The rest of us would be on land, keeping BlackWarGreymon out of the waters. The ground would be commanded by Ross and Taichi, and we'd get three Jogress Digimon waiting for BlackWarGreymon. In short, we were going all out to defend this stone. A lot of strong Digimon arrived to assist on land including an old friend that Ross was very excited to see.

"Great to see you back on your feet, Sarge." Ross addressed a small pink pixie like Digimon. If the stories were any indication, this was Piccolomon.  
"Yeah, feeling much better these days pi."  
"It's really good to see you, Piccolomon, sorry about the Dark Masters and all, but we truly owe you our lives." Taichi thanked.  
"Think nothing of it pi. You were responsible for saving the Digital World, so my sacrifice was well worth it pi pi."  
"Hey, those my old dog tags?" Ross observed the thing Piccolomon was wearing.  
"Believe so, you want them back pi?"  
"Nah, keep them, they look good on you."  
"Guys!" Jou ran over to us. "We've got a problem… BlackWarGreymon is on his way!"  
"Okay… sooner than we thought, everyone in position!" Taichi ordered.

"Iori, you and Jou-san are the only ones we can count on underwater, okay?" Daisuke told him as he and Jou climbed into Sabmarimon and MetalSealmon respectively.  
"Got it. Jou-san, I'll follow your lead down there and help protect the Holy Stone."  
"Thanks, Iori-kun. Wouldn't want anyone else down there with me." Jou gave his junior a warm smile as the canopy's locked on their Digimon and they dived underwater.  
"We can't let BlackWarGreymon get near the ocean!" Daisuke said.  
"Yeah, we'll do whatever it takes to stop him from destroying the Holy Stone!" determined Takeru.  
"Hey, Agumon, you were close to getting his friendship, think you can talk some sense into him?" Guilmon wondered to which Agumon shook his head.  
"I don't think so, not anymore anyways."  
"I agree with Agumon. BlackWarGreymon is obsessed with destroying these stones and won't listen to reason." Monodramon believed. The rest of us nodded. This was one fight that couldn't be avoided.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We all took cover and got ready for the eventually fight. The worst part about it all is the waiting. The inevitability of it all. After a few moments, a loud rumbling was heard at the top of the cliff.  
"BlackWarGreymon is here!" Angemon informed.  
"I sense it… the Holy Stone." He said as he looked straight ahead to the ocean.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress Evolve! SILPHYMON!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!" Our army got all ready for the fight.  
"We'll stop you right here!" Angemon shouted as he charged ahead. His strike was blocked and he was quickly brushed away. "We need to join our powers!"  
"Everyone! Attack together!" Paildramon ordered.  
"Desperado Blaster!" "Heaven's Knuckle!" "Duel Sonic!" "Pit Bomb!" "Howitzer Blast!" All the attacks we launched hit him. When the dust cleared, he was still standing, scratched once more, but not looking like we really did that much damage to him! Come on, what do we need to beat this machine of war!?  
"Gaia Force!" His attack forced everyone to jump out of the way and he used the chance to dive into the sea… only for the sounds of battle under the waves before he was blasted back onto the surface.  
"Desperado Blaster!" Another wave of attacks at BlackWarGreymon sent him crashing into the cliff wall.  
"We did it!" Daisuke cheered.  
"Hold that thought, Daisuke…" Taichi advised.

He was right as the boulders that buried BlackWarGreymon after the attacks exploded and he stood straight up screaming. He was starting to look a bit more worse off but I think we only made him stronger because he soon began glowing an a dark white light.  
"Gaia Force!" He threw it straight into the water and suddenly it began to part like he was Moses! It completely scattered our underwater forces and any on land were also scattered just by the sheer power of the attack. BlackWarGreymon now stood in the parted waters and looked directly at the Holy Stone that was now exposed.  
"Th-the ocean parted!" Daisuke exclaimed.  
"Holy Stone…"  
"Stop!" Wait is that…? "Stop it already, please!" That's Iori! He and Armadimon ran out in front of the Holy Stone to all of our collective shock.

"If you don't want to die, move!" BlackWarGreymon threatened him.  
"No, we won't!"  
"Iori-kun!" The girls cried.  
"Don't be reckless, Iori-kun!" Takeru shouted.  
"Iori, no!" Paildramon also shouted.  
"No, wait!" Silphymon kept Paildramon and MechaRaptormon back. "If we make a wrong move, Iori will be in danger!"  
"Despite being born from Dark Towers, you have a soul, right?" Iori questioned the Ultimate-Level Digimon. "Then please stop destroying the Holy Stones!"  
"I can't do that. If I don't destroy them, I won't get to fight the strong. I won't be able to stay true to myself."  
"Please stop disrupting the balance between the Real World and the Digital World!"  
"Shut up!" He roared and took a step closer. "Anything you say is useless! Right now, all I can think of is destroying the Holy Stones. No, I don't want to think. I won't torture myself any more. We're done talking. Move!"  
"I won't!"

"Then die!" He raised up his arms as he looked ready to chare.  
"I don't want to fight you if you have a soul!"  
 _"_ _Why? Why does he look at me like that?"_ BlackWarGreymon thought. He looked like he was hesitating for a moment. _"Why am I remembering that flower? Why? Why do I hesitate killing him? Is it because I have a soul? Is that what I want? I… I… I never wanted a soul!"_ He charged ahead.  
"Iori, get out of the way, dagyaa!" Armadimon tried to tell him.  
"Iori-kun!" Jou jumped out from behind the stone and grabbed Iori and Armadimon before MetalSealmon got them all out of the way. With them out of the way, BlackWarGreymon focused back on the Holy Stone.  
"Black Tornado!" The stone never stood a chance. Once it was destroyed, the waters began to drop once more and the sky slowly began to darken like before. We all soon got on multiple Digimon and flew out of the area. Our gathered army also took off as well, all smartly knowing to get away as fast as possible.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We got back home and we all headed down to the beach to look out at the bay, downtrodden about losing another Holy Stone; even with everything we had thrown at BlackWarGreymon.  
"Hey, Iori…" Upamon turned to him as he and Patamon were building a sand castle.  
"What is it?"  
"Is it bad if Digimon come to this world?" Iori hesitated to answer before he finally did.  
"We need to prevent that at all costs."  
"I'm a Digimon too, dagyaa…" Upamon looked sad. Iori picked him up as Patamon got a bit closer to a nearby crab.  
"I wish all Digimon were like you, Upamon."  
"There's no good or evil to a life." I explained as I walked over to them. "A life is wonderful just by existing." Patamon jumped into my arms making me smile. We soon turned our attention back to the bay and watched some birds fly along the water. This is a precarious situation we're in now. We've only got one more Holy Stone left to protect.

The thing that's most important is that Iori and I need to Jogress before that fight or all might just be lost…

* * *

Not much to say for this one, except for Piccolomon making appearance in this one. Had this one planned for a while.

Take care everyone for next time.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	42. Angel of Steel! Shakkoumon!

Hmm, this one was a bit shorter than I though. Eh, there was a couple of long pauses... I'll draw it up to that... plus a scene that I thought about putting in but couldn't think of too much to write more that a few sentences.

Anyways, shoutout to **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **Whiteling** for the reviews.

Nothing much more to add here so let's get to the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 41: Angel of Steel! Shakkoumon!**

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. November 6th, 2002. 1501 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We're certainly up against the wall here now. BlackWarGreymon has destroyed all six Holy Stones that we've tried to defend and we have nothing that can be able to stop him. We just keep getting trashed by him and he goes on to destroy the stone. Now we're down to searching for the final stone and just trying as hard as we can to stop him from getting to that one. If he destroys it, the balance of the Digital World will probably be the least of our worries. After class was over, we all hightailed it as fast as we could to quickly get back to Headquarters and then head back into the Digital World to look for the Holy Stone. To mostly anyone who didn't know us, we all looked like a couple of crazy kids as we ran through the streets like our lives depended on it. We arrived with the exception of Iori a few moments after three.

As Miyako started to get things set up, the computer went off as it received a message.  
"Oh, it's an email from Ken-kun. He says that he and Osamu-san will be a little late, so we should go on ahead of them. Says they'll meet up with us as soon as they can." She explained.  
"Iori-kun is late." Hikari noticed.  
"What is he doing?" I growled. Now is not the time for any hold ups, especially with something like the Holy Stones and BlackWarGreymon.  
"He'll be here soon." Takeru tried to assure me, but it really wasn't helping my nerves. The computer beeped once again.  
"That's Ross-san." Miyako said. "He says he'll be on his way first chance he gets today too."

The door to the warehouse opened up and Iori ran in panting.  
"I'm sorry!" He apologized.  
"You're late!" "You're late, Iori!" Both myself and Upamon shouted as I walked up to him.  
"It was my turn to clean the teachers' room." He told us.  
"Saving the last Holy Stone or cleaning the teachers' room, which one is more important?" I questioned him.  
"That's not the point…" exasperated Takeru.  
"Miyako-san!" Hikari turned her attention back to her. Miyako nodded and we all walked to the screen and held up our D-3s.  
"Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children… let's roll!" She cried.

 _Digital World. November 6th, 2002. 1506 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Things were far from quiet at a large industrial plant that resided near some docks in the Digital World. The area was pretty cloudy, but that seemed to always be the weather whenever BlackWarGreymon was in the area. The warehouses near the docks didn't stand much of a chance when BlackWarGreymon blasted apart a few of them with his mighty attacks.  
"Where is the Holy Stone?" He questioned. He took off into the air and soon flew over to the large chemical and oil tanks of the industrial plant. "Black Tornado!" He spun his way through the tanks and caused massive damage in them before they combusted and exploded; devastating the plant.  
"Such beautiful destruction…" Archnemon had a smile on her face as she looked at the carnage through a pair of binoculars. She and Mummymon were sitting in the Dune Buggy as they kept their distance away from the rampage of BlackWarGreymon.

Mummymon, on the other hand, was having some different thoughts as soon as he heard her say those words.  
"A-Archnemon, don't tell me you've fallen in love with BlackWarGreymon!?" Her immediate reaction was quick. Her face turned angry in a flash and she smacked him hard in the face with the binoculars.  
"Don't be ridiculous!" She roared at him.  
"I'm so glad…" He expressed relief as he massaged the welt on his head that he got from the hit. He then passed out and landed face first on the wheel, blaring the car horn. She got him off of the horn and pushed him back up.  
"I swear…" She mumbled as she looked ahead to the ruins of the plant.  
"It must be around here." BlackWarGreymon looked around the destruction he laid. "Where is the Holy Stone?" He took off once more and soon got closer to the two disguised Perfects. Archnemon immediately realized the danger they were suddenly in.

"If we stay here, we'll be blown to pieces too!" She worried. She turned back to her partner. "Mummymon… Mummymon!" She tried to wake him back up. As soon as he woke back up, he tried to kiss her.  
"Archnemon!" She pelted him once more with the binoculars as the mummy thought he was dreaming.  
"Wake up!"  
"Ow…" He moaned as he rubbed the second welt. The nearby destruction soon got their attention as he looked ahead and saw BlackWarGreymon with a large crane right in front of them; it looked like he was very much aiming for them. He soon let the crane go and it was well on its way to crushing the two of them. They both shouted as Mummymon set the car in reverse and floored it, getting them out of the way before being crushed. After that, they decided it was best to put a healthy distance between them and the devastating Ultimate.

The two of them drove for several miles until they finally slowed down near a strange little town.  
"We should be safe here." Mummymon assumed as he stopped the car. Archnemon sighed before the nearby sound of a gong ringing soon filled the air followed by the sound of a string instrument that sounded very East Asian in sound. The two hopped out of the car and suddenly realized the town was very Chinese in look.  
"Hmm…" Mummymon scratched his chin. "It appears we've ended up driving into the Digital World's Chinatown." To his surprise, he got struck in the back of the head by Archnemon's binoculars for the third time. "Ouch…" He groaned as he clutched the back of his head.  
"Anyone can see that!" She yelled at him. "Don't say it with such a straight face!"  
"Stop hitting me so much or I'll become dumb!" He augured with her.

"Quiet!" She covered his mouth to shut him up. Suddenly, she soon caught whiff of something on her nose as a nice smell filed the air. "It smells like good Chinese food…" She let go of Mummymon who had to take some quick breaths. "Smell it, Mummymon." He sniffed the air as well and soon a large smile crossed his face. He got back up and both of them had very excited looks on their faces.  
"Archnemon, how about some ramen?" Mummymon suggested.  
"Sure! To fight the Chosen Children, we'd better eat well and get strong!"  
"Exactly!" The hopped back into the car and drove deeper into town.

They soon stopped outside a restaurant where they were sure the smell was coming from the place. They walked inside and saw it looked very nice, though there were no customers around. The two of them just shrugged their shoulders and took their seats. A small Digimon floated over to them. It looked like a tapir but the bottom half of its body was all covered in smoke and floated above the ground slightly. This was a Digimon known as Bakumon.  
"Pork ramen." Bakumon said as he got to them. It appeared that he was their waiter. Both of them just stared at him in confusion. "Wonton ramen." He smiled and bowed.  
"Ah! I'll have that." Archnemon decided.  
"Me too." Mummymon nodded along with her.  
"Coming up!" Digitamamon shouted out from back in the kitchen.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"BlackWarGreymon seems to be around here, but I wonder if Ken, Osamu-san and Ross-san will know…" Daisuke said as we followed him to the general area that we tracked BlackWarGreymon to. It looked like a large town that looked Chinese in nature. Maybe this was the Digital World's Chinatown.  
"Hey, they got Stingmon, Growmon and Strikedramon, it'll be fine!" assured V-mon.  
"Yeah, you're right. Those guys can take care of themselves if it comes to that."  
"Hikari-chan, you want a drink?" Miyako offered her a bottle of mineral water.  
"Sure, thanks. This water tastes great."  
"This is our store's specially!" She held her arm out.  
"It contains minerals and it's good for your body!" Hawkmon followed the same motions. Then they both had more sly looks on their faces.  
"Next time you want some, stop by Odaiba Ai-Mart, please!"  
"Please!" Both Tailmon and Hikari chuckled.  
"Such great salesmen." Tailmon said.  
"Really!" Hikari added before the four of them all laughed.

"They get along even better since they became able to Jogress Evolve." Iori observed and sounded very disappointed. I put a hand on his shoulder.  
"Iori-kun, we'll be able to do it too."  
"Takeru-san…"  
"Patamon and Armadimon act like they've already Jogress Evolved." I pointed over to them. The two of them were laughing as Armadimon was throwing Patamon up in the air and shouting out some made up names about what they would Jogress into. It was too much for me and I laughed along with them.  
"Hey, don't you smell something good?" Hikari announced causing us all to turn our attention back to her. We all closed our eyes and smelled the air… and found something familiar in the air.  
"Yeah!" Miyako exclaimed. "It smells like tasty Chinese soup!" As if on cue, Daisuke and V-mon's stomachs grumbled.  
"I'm so hungry…" Daisuke nervously laughed.  
"Me too…" V-mon chimed in.  
"Since we're in the Digital World's Chinatown, let's have some Chinese food!" I suggested.  
"Takeru-san?" Iori questioned.  
"It's settled!" Daisuke yelled.

The others started to walk away but I noticed Iori was holding still.  
"Iori? What's wrong, dagyaa?" Armadimon asked as Iori's fists were clenched and shaking. "You don't want to come?"  
"Thinking about Chinese food before fighting BlackWarGreymon…" Now I felt guilty for suggesting that. "They're not serious! I… I even feel anger!" He growled while looking down.  
"I-Iori…" He looked up to his partner. "I'm starving too, dagyaa…" Iori's anger seemed to subside quickly. He looked disappointed again.  
"Armadimon… Maybe it's because I'm so rigid, as I've been told, that I can't Jogress Evolve with Takeru-san." Oh, Iori… He soon caught up with us, but he still looked pretty down trodden.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Unbeknownst that the Chosen Children were coming straight for them, Archnemon and Mummymon were happily enjoying their ramen soup as soon as it had arrived.  
"This ramen is great!" Mummymon declared.  
"And the soup is exquisite." Archnemon added her praise.  
"Excuse me!" He waved down Bakumon.  
"Cantonese ramen." Bakumon spoke softly as he floated over.  
"What are the ingredients of this soup?"  
"Tientsin ramen." replied Bakumon. Mummymon grew a slightly annoyed look.  
"I said ingredients."  
"Spicy ramen!" Archnemon slammed her hands against the table and stood up out of her chair.  
"We can't talk to you! Call the manager!"  
"Vegetable ramen?"  
"Ugh, is all this guy can say is different kinds of ramen?" Mummymon groaned.

A few moments later, Digitamamon, dressed in a chef's hat and apron with a little panda on it, walked up after Bakumon got him.  
"I'm the chef and the owner, Digitamamon." The egg Digimon told the two customers.  
"What are the ingredients of this tasty soup?" Archnemon asked in a surprisingly more calm manner.  
"I can't tell you that." Mummymon practically snapped.  
"What!?" He roared as he stood up from his chair now. Digitamamon soon got angry himself.  
"It's a trade secret!"  
"Who do you think we are?" Archnemon threated him. "You want us to scramble your brains all over your wall!?"

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

As soon as we turned the corner and walked through the front door of the restaurant we smelt that soup coming from; we found ourselves staring right at Archnemon and Mummymon who were yelling at Digitamamon.  
"The Chosen Children!" They exclaimed. We all got in a defensive posture before Daisuke noticed Digitamamon.  
"Huh? Digitamamon? You run a Chinese restaurant too?" Is that really important right now Daisuke?  
"The one at the Western restaurant is a friend of mine. He told me about you. You, the Chosen Children are…"  
"Yes, yes, enough with the introductions." Archnemon jumped in front of him and had a sick grin on her face. She soon morphed back into her Digimon form and laughed. Mummymon followed suit and he too laughed as he reverted to his Digimon form as well before he aimed his gun at us.

"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!"  
"Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!"  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"  
"Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!"  
"Digimental Up!" Hikari shouted.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!"  
"Blast…" "Curse of the…" Aquilamon and Nefertimon dived towards them almost immediately.  
"Acid Mist!" Archnemon delivered her terrible attack and paralyzed the two of them while the rest of our Digimon went after Mummymon. He just sinisterly giggle as he gunned them down, leaving us all in shock as we were suddenly defenseless.

"Jogress Evolution!" Daisuke hurriedly shouted, all the while forgetting a key element to that idea.  
"But… Stingmon isn't here!" XV-mon told him.  
"Ah, you're right…" Daisuke grabbed his hair in a very worried look. "What is Ken doing?"  
"Hikari-chan, us two…" Miyako turned to her Jogress partner.  
"Okay." Hikari nodded as Nefertimon devolved back to Tailmon.  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress Evolve!" Oh, no! Nothing happened!  
"Once more!" Miyako insisted.  
"Okay!"  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress Evolve!" Damn it! Same result!  
"Aquilamon and Tailmon must have no energy for the Jogress Evolution because they're too hungry!" I guessed. Worst timing ever for this to happen.  
"N…no…" feared Iori.

Archnemon and Mummymon chuckled once more as they took a step closer to us. They clearly knew they had the advantage on us.  
"Help!" Digitamamon exclaimed as he and that tapir Digimon ran out the back door.  
"Pork rib ramen!" The smaller Digimon shouted. Both Archnemon and Mummymon's eyes widened and they reverted back to their human disguises and ran right after them.  
"Wait!" She exclaimed before we turned around and saw them entering their car.  
"What are the soup's ingredients? Tell us!" Mummymon yelled as they drove away. That was… odd. And just on cue, Ken and Stingmon showed up.  
"That was…" Ken said before he ran inside the restaurant. "Guys! Everyone okay?!" He asked us as we gathered our devolved Digimon.  
"Archnemon and Mummymon got us…" Daisuke explained. Ken's face darkened.  
"I knew that buggy was them… Listen, we need to go after them right now!"  
"Yeah!" Daisuke agreed and I nodded with him. "Where's Ross-san and Osamu-san?"  
"Not too far behind me, I just went on ahead. We'll need MechaRaptormon's help for sure when dealing with those creeps." Ken told us as we started to get up.

"Wait!" Iori shouted. We all turned to him as he had a serious look on his face. "Our true enemy is neither Archnemon nor Mummymon." He reminded. "Our focus should be on protecting the Holy Stone from BlackWarGreymon. In order for us to even have a chance to defeat him, we have to store up our energy to Jogress Evolve." He made a really good point. If we were going to defend the Holy Stone, it couldn't be on an empty stomach. Iori stood up… then had a smile on his face as he clapped his hands together. "Let's have some ramen!" Looks like he came around.  
"Iori-kun…" I muttered.  
"He's right." Daisuke agreed.  
"Ramen, ramen!" V-mon and Patamon cheered. Everyone else agreed with the idea as well before Hikari suddenly realized there was a bit of a problem with that idea.  
"But Digitamamon and the other one ran away…" She said.  
"Not to worry!" Miyako gave a big smile. "We'll just cook it ourselves!"  
"Let's do it, let's do it!" Both Tailmon and Hawkmon were now the ones cheering. We all got up and headed for the kitchen to get to work.  
"I'll boil some water, then!" "Pass me those noodles." "I'll contact Onii-san and Ross-san to help us as well." "It already smells so good!" "I'm practically drooling over here."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Archnemon and Mummymon soon drove quite a bit of distance away from Chinatown as they began to look through the think bamboo jungle they had entered. After a few moments, the car's engine began to give out loud noises and the exhausts were coughing up some thick black smoke as the car began to slow down to a crawl before stopping.  
"Gahh…" Mummymon gave a worried sound.  
"What's wrong?" The spider woman asked him in an upset tone.  
"I uh… I wanted to speed up, but I think I forced the engine too much."  
"You idiot!" Suddenly, the engine exploded and blew the hood off the car. Mummymon jumped out and started to flail his arms.  
"Th-the engine's going to burn like this! Water, water, water!" He shouted as he tried to look for something to put out the fiery engine. Archnemon jumped out as well and began coughing due to the large plume of smoke that was coming from the engine.  
"I'm going with you!" She ran right after him.

After a couple minutes of walking, Archnemon soon realized that she lost Mummymon somewhere in the bamboo forest.  
"Mummymon?" She called out. "Mummymon?" Now she was getting slightly worried. "Mummymon-" Mummymon suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of her and it caused her to scream in fear as she was frightened.  
"Be quiet…" He told her.  
"Don't scare me like that!" She yelled at him.  
"Shh…" He put his finger up once more. Everything got suddenly quiet as neither of them made a sound. "I can hear it."  
"Hear what?"  
"The sound of water drops."  
"Eh?" She opened her ears and listened out for any sounds. She soon heard a drop of water and knew that Mummymon was indeed correct about what he was hearing.  
"You're right."  
"Hmm… Over there!" He pointed towards a direction and the two of them ran the direction.

They ran for a minute before they reached a clearing where they saw a pond with dark brown water and some boulders with a sign.  
"Wh-what the hell is that?" Mummymon questioned the water. He suddenly smells something familiar as they get up to it. "This nice smell…" Archnemon looks at the sign.  
"It says 'Spring of Chinese soup.'" They look at the water and soon make a connection. "That delicious Chinese soup…"  
"So the soup for that Chinese restaurant's ramen came from here, huh?" He dropped down to his stomach and stuck his tongue out to get a taste… only for Digitamamon and Bakumon to jump out of the bushes and land on his head; causing his sharp teeth to nearly bite off his own tongue.

"You can't drink from the holy Chinese soup spring!" The egg Digimon shouted. He got off Mummymon's head who screamed out in pain.  
"You two were hiding in this place!?" Archnemon glared at them.  
"Look at that!" He motioned them to look at the sign.  
"'You are now allowed to drink the holy soup without permission. If you drink it without permission, you will be punished?'" She read off.  
"That makes me want it even more!" cried Mummymon. "You'll be the ones to be punished." Digitamamon and Bakumon were quickly wrapped up in a Snake Bandage before being thrown into the bushes and Mummymon went back to what he was doing. He took a quick sip of the pool. "Yum!" He exclaimed before the whole ground began to shake.

Something began bubbling from the pond before a large wave exploded and dragged Mummymon into the soup.  
"Mummymon!" Archnemon shouted. He tried to stay above the ranging soup waters before he grabbed something. It was the gold band of a Holy Stone that began floating out of the soup. Mummymon hung on desperately to the large smooth rock but the band eventually fell off and he landed back in the soup. After that, the stone glowed bright… and soon caught the attention of BlackWarGreymon.

Daisuke and V-mon put their bowls down as they finished drinking the soup that the group made.  
"It came out pretty good." Takeru admitted to the other Chosen Children as they all began to finish their meals.  
"The soup is great!" Daisuke said.  
"We're also good chefs!" Miyako claimed.  
"Hey, I was the only one who was actually cooking!" joked Ross.  
"It was really good!" Osamu bowed. Iori and Takeru looked at each other and chuckled.  
"Iori-kun." Takeru put down his chopsticks. "Maybe now… we'll be able to Jogress Evolve." He believed. He turned and give him a confident grin. "That's the feeling I get." Everyone suddenly got surprised when there was a large glow coming from outside.  
"This is…" Daisuke shot up out of his seat.  
"The Holy Stone's light!" Ken shouted.

"I can't believe the Holy Stone was here…" Archnemon muttered as Mummymon flailed in the soup.  
"Archnemon! Help me!"  
"Shut up!" She growled as she picked up a small bolder and tossed it at him. He caught it before realizing what it was.  
"It's heavy!" He sank back under the waves just as BlackWarGreymon landed right behind Archnemon.  
"The last Holy Stone…" He looked ahead.  
"BlackWarGreymon…"  
"I'll destroy it!"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"Hold it!" Daisuke shouted as we all got in between BlackWarGreymon and the Holy Stone. "We'll protect the last Holy Stone!" He declared.  
"How many times do you need to learn your lesson?" BlackWarGreymon asked us.  
"I am a slow learner." Ross gave a determined smirk.  
"Those kids are so pesky!" Archnemon growled as I could see Mummymon climb out of the water. "BlackWarGreymon, finish them off!"  
"I don't take orders from you!" He created a small Gaia Force in his palm and sent it towards them and blasted them into the bamboo forest. That might have actually been of great help to us. At least they probably won't try to distract us in the fight now.  
"Iori-kun…" Takeru got my attention. "It's finally time for our Jogress Evolution."  
"Yes." I nodded. He has to be right… it has to be now or never with this fight.  
"Angemon, I'm looking forward to it, dagyaa!" Ankylomon shouted.  
"Ankylomon, let's do our best!"

"Ken!"  
"Daisuke!"  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Osamu!"  
"Ross-kun!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!"  
"Hikari-chan!"  
"Miyako-san!"  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress Evolve! SILPHYMON!"

"Gaia Force!" BlackWarGreymon sent out his devastating attack which cause all three Jogress Digimon to jump out of the way of the large explosion.  
"Desperado Blaster!" BlackWarGreymon dodged the burst of fire.  
"Howitzer Blast!" He ducked under the large cannon shot.  
"Top Gun!" The Ultimate Digimon turned and clawed the attack into nothingness. This is bad… that Jogress needs to come now!  
"Iori-kun!"  
"T-Takeru-san!"  
"Have confidence."  
"Yes." Upon saying those words, our D-3s glowed. We broke the final barrier!  
"Ankylomon!" "Angemon!" "Jogress Evolve! SHAKKOUMON!"

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Talk about perfect timing with the Jogress, and the result was quite astounding. Shakkoumon looked like some sort of holy golem that towered over the battlefield, even slightly taller than MechaRaptormon.  
"Sh-Shakkoumon?" Takeru and Iori exclaimed as they saw their Jogress Digimon. "We did it!" Iori jumped into Takeru's arms and they spun around in joy before getting serious once more. Four Jogress Digimon started down the Dark Tower Ultimate.  
"The battle… has just begun!" Daisuke shouted as we all got ready for the final fight. Would Shakkoumon help turn the tables?

God, if you're listening, now would be a good time for it to be the case…

* * *

One certainly can hope.

Have to say, this is probably the most Team Rocket-ish that Archnemon and Mummymon get in the series and I really couldn't think of another way around it. Still, I do like to think that I've made them at least some what more imposing throughout these chapters.

Oh, and of course I have Ross to mention the obvious _**Attack of the Clones**_ reference.  
Dooku: "Brave of you, boy. But I would have thought you'd learned your lesson.  
Anakin: "I am a slow learner."

Take care and see you soon, everybody.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	43. The Holy Dragon of the East!

We're starting to reach the end of all this, hard to believe.

Shoutout to **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **MadDogLucario96** for the reviews.

Don't really have much to add for this one so let's continue on.

* * *

 **Chapter 42: The Holy Dragon of the East! Qinglongmon!**

 _Digital World. November 6th, 2002. 1622 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Another eleventh hour evolution and at good timing as the four Jogress Digimon stared down BlackWarGreymon who slightly took a small step back. It was barely noticeable, but Shakkoumon actually intimidated him. Now of course it remained to be seen if we now finally had the final piece to the puzzle that was combating BlackWarGreymon. Shakkoumon looked like he may be able to soak up some damage but with BlackWarGreymon, it's any ones guess. I just really hope to be right about this one.  
"We did it!" I heard Iori cheer a bit more silently as we looked straight ahead towards the Dark Tower Ultimate. "Finally… we can finally fight alongside Paildramon, MechaRaptormon and Silphymon!" He sure sounded excited about this.  
"Yeah." Takeru agreed with him. "We're counting on you, Shakkoumon!" He yelled.  
"Leave it to me, dagyaa!" The holy golem responded in a voice that was a combination of Ankylomon and Angemon's voices… with a hint of Ankylomon's mannerisms thanks to that little 'dagyaa'.

BlackWarGreymon recovered once more from the shock of the Jogress and took a step forward as he clearly was ready for the fight once more.  
"Get out of my way." He ordered. Does he really think after all this we'll just step aside?  
"We won't." Silphymon told him.  
"Move!"  
"The battle starts now!" Paildramon informed.  
"I won't ask this again. Move aside and let me destroy the Holy Stone or else!" BlackWarGreymon threatened as we were clearly trying his patience.  
"We'll pick 'or else.'" MechaRaptormon tempted. BlackWarGreymon roared and started charging up a Gaia Force.  
"If you don't move, I'll make you move!" He threw the attack and Shakkoumon moved forward and took the full brunt of the attack. Our eyes were wide opened as we couldn't really see what had happened. Did he get destroyed?

"It's no use! He'll defeat us!" Ken began to worry.  
"Dammit!" Daisuke cursed as we kept our eyes closed from the bright light of the attack.  
"Shakkoumon!" Iori called out for his partner. We all gasped in surprise as we could now see Shakkoumon with his arms up and easily handling the attack. It suddenly dispersed as Shakkoumon sucked up the attack into his body before releasing it all harmlessly back into the air through the top of his head like an exhaust port.  
"What!?" exclaimed BlackWarGreymon who was also surprised by this recent turn.  
"Shakkoumon!" Iori cheered once more.  
"He absorbed BlackWarGreymon's Gaia Force!" Takeru shouted.  
"Awesome!" Daisuke pumped his fist.  
"What was that you said about needing the defense, Ross-kun?" Osamu asked me. I smirked.  
"For once, I'm glad I was right!"

"Harmonious Spirit!" Shakkoumon's eyes opened wide and large red-orange beams shot out fast that struck BlackWarGreymon in both his shoulder guards and actually caused him pain as they had cut through the armor!  
"Now!" Paildramon ordered for the rest of the Digimon to continue the attack. Paildramon and Silphymon charged forward while MechaRaptormon stayed back to provide assistance to Shakkoumon.  
"No matter what…" Silphymon determined.  
"We won't let you destroy the Holy Stone!" Paildramon cried. "Let's go!"  
"Dual Sonic!" BlackWarGreymon regrouped and swung his claw at the incoming attack, causing it to disperse.  
"Why?" He questioned as he jumped up to meet them. He then grabbed Paildramon's arm and swung him down to the ground.  
"Paildramon!" Daisuke called out to his partner. BlackWarGreymon turned around and slapped Silphymon right across the face with the back of his arm guard and caused her to crash right next to Paildramon. However, they quickly got back up.  
"Why are you going this far…" BlackWarGreymon wondered.

"Howitzer Blast!" BlackWarGreymon's distraction cost him as MechaRaptormon fired and his round blew off the right leg guard on BlackWarGreymon.  
"Ruling Spirit!" The large sun looking object on Shakkoumon opened up and the sharp bladed discs soon flew out and towards the Dark Tower Digimon. He pulled out his back shield and brought it forward to cause the disks to bounce off and explode but they severely cracked the shield.  
"To protect the Holy Stone?" He finished the sentence he was saying before the two attacks were launched at him.  
"To protect the Digital World!" All four Digimon answered him in unison as Paildramon, Silphymon and now MechaRaptormon charged again.  
"Desperado Blaster!" BlackWarGreymon held up the shield as pieces of it were chipping away.  
"How can you act so boldly without hesitation?" BlackWarGreymon clearly still has a lot to learn about us.  
"Top Gun!" The shot blasted apart the shield giving MechaRaptormon an opening.  
"Mecha Strike!" MechaRaptormon's tail glowed white and he spun around in midair and struck BlackWarGreymon sending him flying in pain.

"We got him?" Silphymon questioned as we saw BlackWarGreymon beginning to fall into the bamboo forest.  
 _"_ _Why? Do they have something I don't have?"_ He thought to himself as he fell to Earth and crashed hard.  
"Did we get him?" Daisuke asked the same question. Let's hold on to that thought, Daisuke, we've assumed that before. We were all shocked when he came crawling out the forest and pulling himself back up. His injuries were insane. Much of his armor was wrecked, especially his helmet which had shattered in half and we could now see half of his reptile like face. He was also bleeding black blood everywhere all over his body… even WarGreymon's injuries weren't as bad when he was nearly killed by Piemon! There's no stopping him! He's hell-bent on either destroying that stone or dying!  
"Why? How can you live like that? Tell me. Why was I born?" He questioned as some different black fluid was spewing out, I don't even want to know what that stuff is. "Why am I so different from you?" Has he still not figure he was just a pawn in Archnemon's game? "If I cannot know why, I don't care if this world ends! Tell me!" He screamed as he got back onto his feet.

"He's sad… So deeply…" Hikari observed. That's sadness, Hikari? It's a bit hard to tell with all that anger.  
"I'll destroy the Holy Stone." He growled as I positioned himself for a charge. "The answer lies beyond that!" He stepped back forward as our Digimon got in his way again.  
"We won't let you!" They shouted once more.  
"It's useless." BlackWarGreymon stepped forward as Silphymon ran up to him only to get tossed aside. Paildramon followed suit as he reached him and was thrown away too. MechaRaptormon tried as well but the result was the same. Despite all his injuries, BlackWarGreymon was fighting harder than he had before.  
"It's no good… we can't stop him!" worried Osamu.  
"But if the Holy Stone is destroyed, the Digital World will…"  
"We know, Hikari!" I interrupted her. "We're in trouble here!"  
"It won't just be the Digital World, our Real World too…" informed Iori.

"If that's how it is…" Daisuke grumbled in anger at the fact that we just couldn't win. "Wait… what if we tried moving it somehow?" Daisuke suggested.  
"Huh?" We all said as Silphymon was slammed into the bamboo.  
"What do you mean?" Ken asked him.  
"While Paildramon and the others hold him off, we'll take the Holy Stone somewhere else!" Paildramon was knocked down again as he said that.  
"But that's crazy!" Takeru told him.  
"We won't know until we try, right?" Now, MechaRaptormon was crushed into the ground. "Anyway, let's try!" Soon, Shakkoumon was dragged down as well.  
"Yeah, we can't just sit here and watch." Miyako agreed as we all continued to look at the floating stone.

"There's no way you can do something like that." We heard Archnemon's taunting voice and turned around to see her and Mummymon back again. Ugh, how much I really just want Guilmon or any of his evolutions to cut that bitch's head off! "Give up."  
"Shut up, spider woman!" Daisuke shouted at her.  
"We're not letting you get your way!" Osamu got in front of us all. He held more aggression at her then any of considering he was just another pawn to her like BlackWarGreymon. She just laughed at his words.  
"Can you afford to be so cocky with me? Mummymon." Mummymon chuckled and turned into his Digimon form once again before walking forward.  
"This time I'll make sure you stop breathing! Which one do you want? Strangulation or your guts hanging out after I blast them!" He then fired his rifle at us.

"Double Nightmare Syndrome!" Digitamamon's attack flew right in front of us and took all the energy that was fired into its mouth. He and that tapir Digimon soon hopped in front of us.  
"We don't forgive those who taint the holy Chinese soup spring!" Wait, is that what that water is? Never mind, thank you Digitamamon!  
"Cold ramen!" They charged forward at the gruesome twosome and sent them back into the bamboo.  
"Children, protect the Holy Stone!" Digitamamon ordered us.  
"Got it!" Daisuke said.  
"Thanks, Digitamamon and your friend!" Miyako praised.  
"It's our chance!" Ken informed and we turned back to the stone. "But… how?" That was really stumping us. How exactly do we move this thing? Daisuke looked deep in thought before he came up with something.  
"That's it! Let's try aiming our D-3s at it!" We all nod with him. Best idea we've got so might as well try it.

We all stepped forward and soon held up our D-3s to the Holy Stone. Nothing happened for a moment until the stone suddenly began shining once again like it had several minutes earlier. We then looked to the sky above and saw six other lights shine across before they all connected together.  
"Those lights…" observed Hikari.  
"They're gathering from all over." Iori added. The large light soon split into eight different beams and shot towards our D-3s.  
"Wh-what's going on?" Daisuke inquired. Our D-3s then shined lights that were colored like our D-3s and connected with the rock. It glowed in an aura of rainbow light before it shot upwards into the sky and sailed over. Everyone in the area focused their attention on it. Soon dark clouds began to gather in the sky before golden beams of light came from the sky. It was if Heaven was opening up. And out of the clouds came that Digimon we saw before. A large snake-like dragon with a large beard as it began to fill the sky. It's body was mostly clear except for the chains that wrapped around it and the small white wings. I'll admit, that's probably one of the most awe inspiring things I have ever seen in my life.

"Back then… the Digimon we saw when the fourth Holy Stone was destroyed…" Hikari remembered.  
"It's an incredibly big Digimon…" Daisuke said. That's really understating it, Daisuke.  
"Is this what BlackWarGreymon was waiting for?" Takeru wondered.  
"You may be right… but if he wants to take that thing on in his condition…" I told him.  
"You're finally here…" BlackWarGreymon stared down the giant Digimon. "I've been waiting for this day to come. The day I would meet you." The dragon stared him down as well.  
"The one who holds the cursed dark soul…" He spoke in a titanic and demanding voice.  
"Cursed dark soul?" BlackWarGreymon questioned. "You mean me?"  
"Why have you done this? Why have you destroyed the Holy Stones?"  
"I came all this way only to fight you." There is just no reasoning with that guy. He's probably going to get eviscerated in a second if he fights that dragon now. "You're stronger than any other Digimon I've seen before, aren't you?"  
"Do you know who I am?" I, myself have a few guesses, but hopefully he'll explain.  
"I don't. I don't need to!"

"My name is Qinglongmon." Aw, something of a Digital World's answer to an ancient Chinese dragon. Shares the part of the same name with the Qing Dynasty. Come to think of it, he looks pretty similar to the dragon on the Qing flag.  
"Qinglongmon?"  
"I protect the Eastern area of this world and hold the spheres of Light and Hope." Light and Hope? I quickly looked to Takeru and Hikari as those were their Crests. "Because you destroyed the Holy Stones, the harmony of this world is in disorder. Do you understand what you have done?"  
"That means nothing to me!" Okay, I think it's official. BlackWarGreymon has a death wish; now would be the perfect time to for him to back off before things get really nasty. Of course, he's expressed that he doesn't care about any of that so… "Fight me, Qinglongmon!" We all watched as BlackWarGreymon flew up right towards him.  
"Fool." That was all Qinglongmon said before a bright light glowed from his body and hit BlackWarGreymon, paralyzing him in pain.

"You did all this just for that purpose?" He asked as BlackWarGreymon just floated there. "Your dark existence seals my powers and brings disorder to the harmony of this world!"  
"My existence!?"  
"Haven't you realized? The towers of darkness to the East are what seal my powers." I then looked to Osamu who now looked slightly nervous. I gave him a quick pat on the back to give him a reassuring look. He may have built them, but Archnemon was the puppet master with all of it. "You were created from one hundred of them, making your existence darkness itself!"  
"What?"  
"The Dark Towers seal his power?" Daisuke questioned.  
"What is the meaning of this?" BlackWarGreymon turned to us.

We turned around too as we heard slowly clapping from behind. We saw Archnemon and Mummymon approaching again, with him holding a defeated Digitamamon and his tapir sidekick in his hands.  
"Oh well, you found out."  
"Archnemon!" Osamu growled.  
"Building as many Dark Towers as possible and destroying this world's balance. That's our goal."  
"And that's why you used me as the Digimon Kaiser! To get me to build your vast array of Dark Towers!"  
"Yeah, that's right. Of course, I said before that any of you little insects would've been just as well suited to becoming Kaisers or Kaiserins. All of you would've just been used to build up the Dark Towers… But then you got the wrong idea, had your little brother bring you back to the light, joined the Chosen Children and started to destroy them." She laughed which really just made us all more angry. "That's why I created you." She turned to look up at BlackWarGreymon. "And now you wonder about your life's purpose? How stupid. Dark Tower Digimon don't need a will or a soul."

In a flash, BlackWarGreymon was suddenly right beside us and grabbed Archnemon by the neck and was slowly strangling the life out of her.  
"H-help me!" She choked out. Please, this is what I've been wanting for a month now. You poking the bear too much that your own creation destroys you. Aw, sweet irony. "I had no ill intentions! It just couldn't be helped! This was all part of your destiny!"  
"Destiny? Then why am I here? Is that destiny as well?"  
"BlackWarGreymon." Qinglongmon spoke up once more. He turned his head back to him. "No one can answer that but yourself."  
"Myself?"  
"No matter what it takes to reach that answer, there is a reason for every being's existence."  
"So there is a reason for my existence?"  
"Yes. But the only one who can find it is you. That is all I can tell you." BlackWarGreymon turned his attention back to Archnemon and threw her onto the ground. Damn.  
"Archnemon!" Mummymon ran over to her.

BlackWarGreymon once again turned his attention back towards Qinglongmon.  
"I'm glad I met you." He said, much to almost everyone's surprise. "You told me that even my existence has a meaning." He then looked to us. "Even if that meaning is to be hated." He then just started to walk away, walking right by us and kept on going.  
"Where are you going?" Daisuke asked him.  
"To somewhere that is nowhere…" He gave us a pretty vague answer.  
"To somewhere that is nowhere…?" repeated Daisuke.  
"What?! Let's go, Mummymon!" Archnemon exclaimed as she got back up.  
"Eh? Where?"  
"Isn't it obvious? To stop him!" They soon ran right past us. "You better remember this, because it's not over yet!"  
"Your sour grapes don't scare us!" Daisuke taunted.  
"So long, Musashi and Kojirō!" I couldn't help but join in the taunting. And of course, comparing them to Team Rocket caused a few members of our group to chuckle.

Our Digimon devolved and soon returned to us, most of them were normal, except for Takeru's and Iori's. Takeru was now holding Tokomon while Iori held something that looked similar to Upamon but he only had one tall fin thing on his head.  
"Chosen Children!" Qinglongmon turned his attention to us now. We looked at him. "I am one of the four Ultimate Digimon who exist to maintain the balance of this world. I protect the Eastern area. Xuanwumon protects the North, Zhuqiaomon to the South, and Baihumon to the West."  
"Ah, it's like in Kyoto…" Miyako pointed out.  
"Kyoto?" Daisuke questioned.  
"I talked a bit about it when I got back from Kyoto. Four sacred beasts protect Kyoto in all directions."  
"Yes. There are many similarities between this world and yours. Also, the four of us answer to an even mightier Digimon named Huanglongmon who serves as God." Whoa, hold up there! "Though, I think even he answers to something stronger than him…" Oh, phew, crisis of faith averted.

"Wait, if you protect the Digital World… where were you when we needed help in our adventures?" Takeru asked him.  
"To answer, after a long battle, we were sealed by the four Dark Masters. It was then that eight of the nine Chosen Children came to this world." August 1st, 1999. An unforgettable day for all of us. As he said that, the memories of our adventures just flooded my mind. "After the eight returned to their world, the Dark Masters analyzed this world and reintegrated it."  
"That was Spiral Mountain, right?" Hikari questioned.  
"The nine children and their Digimon defeated the Dark Masters, but that did not break our seal. The reason is that this world's power was used to bring itself back to its original state. To break our seal, we had to borrow the power of the Chosen Children's Crests." There's an added reason of why Gennai asked us to give them up. The old coot probably knew the entire time. "For that reason, the Digimon need our help in order to reach Perfect-Level."  
"So that's why they can only reach Perfect-Level at certain times…" Takeru figured it out.

"That's what Koushiro-san explained to us a while back, right?" inquired Iori. "He was talking about Qinglongmon and the others."  
"When the towers of darkness began to rise in this world and their dark power prevented Digimon from evolving, in the hopes of returning harmony to this world, we decided to use the power of a lost ancient evolution." Qinglongmon continued.  
"Armor Evolution, correct? It was all an attempt to work around the power of the Dark Towers." Ken said.  
"We put a few Digimon who had the ancient powers to sleep, and created three new Digivices to fight against the power of darkness. Then we sent them to new children."  
"That must be us!" Well, no duh, Daisuke.  
"Yeah. Daisuke, me, and…" Miyako looked over.  
"Myself." interrupted Iori.  
"However, there was something we had not anticipated. You had a device that saved the Digimental's information. With that, you were not limited to one Digimental. The three Digimon were able to evolve with other Crests, and so, when the power of the Digimentals of Friendship, Purity and Sincerity was needed, it was sent over. In addition, in order to bring the one swallowed by darkness back, it was necessary to temporarily create the Digimental of Miracles with the Crest of Compassion engulfed by darkness."

The conversation was stopped when we heard BlackWarGreymon roar out in the distance. We soon saw him flying back into the sky, going to wherever he wishes to go to find himself… or to just be alone.  
"What a sad voice…" pitied Hikari.  
"You who were born with the burden of an unfortunate destiny…" Qinglongmon looked over. "No matter how many long months it may take, I pray for the day you find your answer to come.  
"So, now you can recover your lost power, right?" I asked him.  
"Not right away. This world's balance has already crumbled. However, where the Holy Stones once stood, I will plant seeds of light."  
"Seeds of light?" wondered Osamu.  
"When the seeds sprout and grow, they will one day take the Holy Stones' place."  
"That's great…" Miyako gave out a sigh of relief.  
"So this world will slowly regain its balance, right?" Hikari asked once more.  
"We worked so hard!" Daisuke wiped the sweat from brow as he also sighed.  
"You're right." Takeru nodded.  
"Right? Right?"

"Hey, what's wrong, Onii-san?" Ken tapped him on the shoulder as he was looking down. "Come on, if you have something to say, then just say it."  
"Well… I was thinking that unless all the darkness was destroyed, it will eventually absorb its surroundings and grow larger, creating another sad life like BlackWarGreymon."  
"Osamu-chan…" Monodramon muttered.  
"Wait, Osamu, you mean…?" I spoke up but couldn't finish. We could all tell he was talking about himself along with BlackWarGreymon. He was talking about how he was taken in by the power of darkness and created a Digimon like Chimairamon.  
"I don't think so." Takeru got our attention. "Sure, darkness is frightening, and we would feel at ease if we could get rid of it completely, but I'm sure that's impossible."  
"Impossible?" Osamu questioned.  
"Where there's light, there's always darkness."  
"The brighter the light, the darker the shadow, right?" Hikari followed along.  
"Yes. That's why I think it's important not to lose sight of the light inside you, no matter how dark it is." Where was this advice when I nearly jumped off the roof? That certainly would've helped.  
"Not losing sight of the light inside you…" Osamu muttered.

"Yes. That truly is hope." Qinglongmon spoke once more. "No matter how dark, keep the light inside your heart lit. That is what it means to hold the Crest of Hope."  
"The light inside your heart?" repeated Hikari.  
"The Crests that freed me from my seal after the Dark Masters' defeat were your two Crests: Light and Hope."  
"Mine and Takeru-kun's Crest?"  
"Yes, Xuanwumon holds the traits of Sincerity and Knowledge." That's Jou and Koushiro, along with Iori. "Zhuqiaomon, Love and Purity." Sora and Mimi, as well as Miyako. "Finally, Baihumon bares Courage and Friendship." Taichi, Yamato and Daisuke.  
"Wait?" I inquired once again. "What about us three?" I motioned to myself, Ken and Osamu. "Honor, Kindness and Compassion? Those belong to Huanglongmon?"  
"You would be correct. However, he carries the opposites as well. He remains asleep so as to keep balance as he is both good and evil." Well, that's nice to know that as well as my trait is carried by the god of Digimon. "When the Dark Digivice appeared in this world, we could only find three Digimon that were able to use the ancient evolution. But among the children who held the original Crests, the Digimon were able to use it too. We changed the shape of your Digivices so you could use the ancient evolution."

"That explains why all of our Digimon can Armor Evolve too…" Takeru said.  
"However, your two Crests, Light and Hope, are somewhat different from the others. Courage… Love… Knowledge… All powers that the child's heart holds. But light is what gives life to this world… And hope means not to lose the light, even when engulfed by darkness. When your hearts become one, a new power is born and the light shines brighter. That light leads to evolution." He then took a short pause in his speech. "Chosen Children, BlackWarGreymon has left and I shall regain my powers… However, it does not mean that all threats have been eliminated." Everyone gasped. Knew we weren't done yet.  
"What do you mean?" Miyako questioned.  
"The evil that tried to seal me has not disappeared."  
"Is that Archnemon and Mummymon?" Iori wondered.  
"No, it is not something they can think of themselves. There is a far greater evil, filled with hatred."  
"What?! You mean to tell us that Archnemon and Mummymon are also pawns on the chess board? Then who's moving the pieces then!?" I shouted.  
"That evil is what made me…" Osamu muttered once again.

"You mission is not over yet. Do not let your guard down!" Qinglongmon advised before he started to fly back in the clouds.  
"Okay, we'll be careful!" Daisuke told him on behalf of all of us.  
"Then, until we meet again." He soon vanished.  
"Goodbye!" Hikari waved and we soon all joined in as well. After a few minutes, we found ourselves back at Digitamamon's restaurant.  
"Thanks to you all, we can safely start business again!" He told us.  
"Pork ramen!"  
"It's not much, but this is a token of our appreciation." He pulled out a large plate of dumplings.

"Thanks for the meal!" We all said. Daisuke reached forward before Miyako grabbed his head.  
"Hey, Daisuke! I was gonna eat that one!"  
"They're all the same!" The two started to fight.  
"Osamu…" I tapped him. "They're delicious. Eat one with us, won't you?" He smiled and nodded.  
"Thanks." He then split it in half and handed one half to Monodramon. "Is it good?"  
"Yeah! Osamu-chan, eating with friends is great, isn't it?" He said that line similar to what he said back when they stayed the night at the apartment. _"Being with friends is great, isn't it Osamu-chan?"  
_ "You're right."  
"I just said I want that one!" Looks like Daisuke's now starting to horde the dumplings.  
"You ain't getting it!"  
"Break it up you two before I break both of you!" I stood up to stop the fighting, only causing Ken, Osamu, Hikari, Iori and Takeru to laugh at it all.

We started to walk back home after returning to back to the Real World.  
"The Chinese buns were great!" Daisuke rubbed his belly as he was clearly full.  
"Hey, you ate one more than I did!" Miyako augured. Oh, here we go again…  
"You were counting?"  
"I hold terrible grudges when it comes to food!" Both of them huffed and looked away before Daisuke suddenly stopped.  
"What's wrong?" I asked him.  
"Call me crazy… but I could've sworn I just saw a Dark Tower over there…"  
"I think you need a few days… the stress of all our work in the Digital World is probably catching up with you." I assured him.  
"Yeah… I think you might be right… I hope…" He said that last part under his breath. With BlackWarGreymon no longer a threat and the Holy Stones now safe, we could turn our attention back to destroying Dark Towers and putting Archnemon's plan on ice.

One question still remains though; who's truly pulling her strings…?

* * *

We all know who, but no spoilers!

Anyways, this was a good one to write and nice to close up the Holy Stone arc... now comes the real challenge when the stakes hit closer to home.

Take care, folks, see you next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	44. Holy Night! Incursion into Odaiba!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I know it's actually April when this has been posted but I just want to put you in the holiday spirit, even if it's for a few minutes in your day with this chapter.

Shoutouts to **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , and a guest reviewer who left a great one. Yeah, we're getting to the final showdown soon enough. Oh, and to **GreenD109** , I'm afraid there is and will never be other wielders of the Crests of Honor, Kindness and Compassion. Sorry, I was already burdened with adding my OC and Osamu into the story that having any more Chosen Children and Digimon would've just been an overload. Sorry for failing you once more with this.

Anyways, I got a ton to say about this chapter, but I'll save it for the end. Till then, enjoy.

* * *

 **Chapter 43: Holy Night! Incursion into Odaiba!**

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 24th, 2002. 0852 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

 _"_ _I don't mind you hitting me, Frank, but take it easy on the Bacardi. To old times, my friend."  
"Oh, my God, it's..."  
"Lew Hayward, your old boss. Your best friend."  
"But you're...dead."  
"Seven years."  
_ _"_ _Gah, Has it been that long? Jeez, I mean, to look at you, I wouldn't have guessed… more than three, tops."  
"Oh, Frank. Frank, you are in trouble. Big trouble."  
"All right, let's just say for argument's sake that you're right, that I am in big trouble. What exactly would that mean?"  
"Look at me. Look at your future. Now, if you don't change your ways, you're gonna wind up doomed, just as I am. Ugh… One minute, I'm on the 14th hole at Winged Foot, lining up a putt. A heart attack later, I'm a worm feast!"  
_ _"_ _No, no, no, no, no, no, you're not a worm feast, you're an hallucination! Brought on by alcohol! Russian vodka poisoned by Chernobyl!"_

"I love this movie so much." I said, as Taichi, Takeo, myself, Guilmon and Agumon all sat in the living room and watched **_Scrooged_** early in the morning. It was always a tradition to watch my favorite rendition of a Christmas Carol around Christmas Eve. Hard to believe it's already Christmas. The past month and a half has basically been a blur. After our encounter with Qinglongmon, our attention went back to wrecking Dark Towers in order to stop Archnemon's plan to destroy the Digital World. Speaking of which, we haven't seen any sight of her or Mummymon since that day they went to chase down BlackWarGreymon; we haven't seen him either so at least we didn't need to worry about saving the Holy Stones. The New Breed mostly took over things and offered to focus more of their time on wrecking the towers. We did our share too, but… I get the feeling they just wanted to prove themselves more than they already have. There was also the issue with the fact that we still haven't figured out who's pulling Archnemon's leash, and that's what worries me. Of course today, it's now Christmas; the whole city is in the spirit and now's a time to relax a bit.

"It is a very funny film." Guilmon observed in response to my statement.  
"So, you guys are going to meet up later today?" Takeo asked us.  
"Yeah, Miyako-kun said the others have us older Chosen Children quite a surprise today, and well, eh, you deserve to hang out with us." Taichi told him.  
"Come on… I'm not one of you guys."  
"Your service was invaluable, Takeo. You were truly a great help when we were fighting Osamu." I assured him.  
"Yeah, and I kinda wished Archnemon had just moved into Osamu's place so I could keep helping like before… but a long winded lecture from Koushiro-kun told me about why that didn't exactly happen. I'm serious, there were multiple times where I thought I was just going to doze off." He joked.  
"To be fair, Takeo, we all kinda fell the same." Taichi laughed before he suddenly stopped. "Don't tell him I said that."  
"What will it take to buy my silence?" Agumon chuckled which earned him a glare from Taichi.

"Well, I've really been kinda left out ever since Miyako-kun told me to stop watching the Digital World map." He explained.  
"I think that might have something to do with that surprise I mentioned before." replied Taichi.  
"Can't truly imagine what it would be." I wondered before we turned our attention back to the screen as Lew was hanging Frank out the window before he'd end up back in his office and the phone would automatically call Claire. "Well, whatever it is, I'm sure we'll probably like it."  
"I'm with you on that." Taichi took a sip of his drink. "Can we finish this movie before we have to leave?" I looked at the clock.  
"Yeah. Should have about thirty minutes to spare."  
"Come on, let's not pause this thing again or we'll never finish!" Guilmon complained. He sure did love movies.

 _Digital World. December 24th, 2002. 0947 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"X-Laser!" XV-mon's attack rings out as another Dark Tower topples over.  
"Glide Horn!" "Tail Hammer!" "Shooting Star!" "Spiking Finish!" "Strike Claw!" "Rosetta Stone!" Our Digimon dealt with the other remaining Dark Towers. This was important… as they were the last Dark Towers in the Digital World. We had finally cleared out the sinister threat to the Digital World.  
"Alright! You did it!" Daisuke praised the Digimon for their work.  
"I don't know what Onii-chan or Ross-chan would say at this moment, but I could hazard a guess." Hikari said. "'That ladies and gentleman, is all she wrote.'" She gave a light chuckle upon saying that.  
"Yeah, you're right about that Hikari-chan! All of the Dark Towers have now been destroyed!"  
"It's certainly been a while since we last saw the Digital World without Dark Towers." Iori says. The others are celebrating before I walk over to Osamu.

"Hey, Onii-san, about that…" I see him look nervous as he slowly starts to pull out the envelopes from his pocket.  
"I don't know about this…"  
"This was your idea, Osamu-chan." Monodramon reminded him.  
"But will they accept it?"  
"Of course, they're all your friends, Osamu-chan." assured Wormmon.  
"Hey, guys!" Daisuke soon ran up to us. "What are you doing? What do you have there?"  
"Well…" Osamu hid it behind his back, just making Daisuke want to know more.  
"C'mon, what is it?" He sighed and finally relented.  
"My mother said we should have a Christmas party at our house and invite you all…"  
"Really? You really want us to come over?"  
"Hey, some of you already have." I pointed out. Now the others started to get excited as they gathered around.

"Great! So, those are invitations?" Miyako asked.  
"Yeah… Would you like to come…?" Man, I really have never seen Osamu this nervous in my life. He always looked like he had it under control; I don't know, maybe I just never truly noticed. Wouldn't be the first time I didn't notice something off.  
"Of course." Takeru kindly told him and held out his hand.  
"Thanks."  
"Same to you. I'm happy you invited us."  
"It was all his idea, by the way." I gave him a slight nudge which just caused him to go even redder from embarrassment.  
"And us…? Can we come?" V-mon asked as the Digimon looked somewhat nervous about being excluded.  
"Of course!" Osamu assured them.  
"A Christmas party!" Patamon cheered.  
"But… what is Christmas?" Hawkmon asked. Daisuke soon began to explain.

Meanwhile, Iori and Armadimon were still looking out across the field by themselves as Osamu held the last invitation. He sighed once more.  
"Come on, it's all water under the bridge." I told him considering he felt that he and Iori were still a bit distant. He nodded and walked over to him before holding out the card.  
"Will you accept it?" He asked him. Iori soon gained a small smile.  
"Thank you. I'll definitely come." Osamu gave a little sigh of relief upon hearing that. Looks like those two are finally getting along now.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Back in Odaiba, the city was going on with its Christmas business as usual. People were all bundled up in winter clothes while laughing and talking and getting into the festive mood as they were doing some last minute shopping or just hanging out. The shops and malls all over the city were decorated and Christmas music played throughout them. For some people, there was not as much time to socialize as they had important business, such as the case for Yamato and his band who were getting ready for their biggest gig to date: a live performance of their band being broadcasted on local stations. All of it was part of a competition they were in where multiple bands from the city's different junior highs were playing against each other.  
"Sorry I'm late!" Yutaka apologized.  
"Hey, what were you up to?" Akira asked him. "Don't tell me… a date?" Yutaka chuckled. "Gimme a break! The junior high band contest is right around the corner!"  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But, you know…"  
"Whatever!" Yamato spoke up. "Let's start jamming."

Yamato began to tune his guitar before he soon heard his cellphone begin to ring. He picked it up and looked at the number before answering.  
"Dad?"  
"Sorry, but it doesn't look like I can go home tonight." Hiroaki admitted. Yamato sighed.  
"It's fine. You must be busy with the holiday TV shows."  
"Well, that and other things."  
"Yeah, I'll be back late tonight as well, so I'll get my own dinner."  
"Sorry… I'll make a great dinner for us next time."  
"Of course. I look forward to it. Later." He hung up.

Down at the Aqua City mall, Natsuko Takaishi was doing some last minute shopping herself before she meet with Daisuke's father, Haruto, and had a short conversation with him.  
"Thanks for always having Takeru over."  
"No, no, same to you about Daisuke. I hear they're going to a Christmas party."  
"Yes… oh, I'm sorry. I'm robbing you of your time, aren't I?"  
"Not at all, anyways…" He handed her a manila envelope. "Here's the information." He began to walk away.  
"Have a happy New Year." She turned back around before she turned around… and nearly bumped into Phil. "Oh, excuse m- Captain McGlathery!" Phil gave a light laugh.  
"Good to see you again, Takaishi-kun, but I guess word doesn't get around apparently, it's Rear Admiral now."  
"Oh, I'm sorry."  
"Quite alright."

"Anyways, how have you been? It's been quite a while."  
"Pretty good, and yes it has. I think it's been almost three and a half years since we last saw each other."  
"Even if our sons have seen each other much more lately."  
"Indeed… certainly has calmed down with them with what Ross has told me."  
"That's good to hear… oh, by the way, I have to really thank you, Phil-san."  
"What for?"  
"Well… not too long after the kids went on their camping trip… well, Hiroaki and I have actually been seeing each other again."  
"Really?"  
"Yep… he said those words you gave him… they actually convinced him to actually ask me out again, and… we've been really reconnecting."  
"Well, that's terrific to hear. I was just saying stuff that night, we were both stressed with the whole Kaiser thing going on."  
"Still, I have to thank you. It's actually kind of funny, our boys don't know that we've been seeing each other again." Both of them laughed as they started to walk towards the parking lot.

As they walked, a very tall, gaunt, pale skin man with long black hair and wearing a purple jumpsuit stood up and soon blocked their way. It felt as if the temperature dropped even more than it already was.  
"Ah, Rear Admiral McGlathery, Takaishi-kun, so nice to see you two again. I'm Oikawa Yukio, do either of you remember me?" The tall man asked them. Phil slowly and subtly began to get in front of Natsuko as they looked at the man who stood above them.  
"Ah, yes… Oikawa-san…" She said.  
"Yes."  
"You asked for information about what happened at Hikarigaoka…"  
"Yes… I also wanted to ask about the 'Odaiba fog' case. But we didn't meet in the end."  
"I was busy back then, and didn't have time…"  
"Besides, you met with me and I told you all that I knew." interrupted Phil.  
"I know you did." He said to the navy man before turning to look at Natsuko. "And it's fine. I did some research myself." Both adults felt themselves tense up upon those words.  
"I see…" Natsuko took a step back. "So, what do you need today?"  
"That case isn't over yet. It's just beginning. I'll see you later." He started to walk pass them. "Enjoy the holidays, you two. It's the most wonderful time of the year."

And just as soon as he was there, he was gone.  
"What… what was that?" She questioned.  
"I don't know… but I had hoped I'd never run into that ghoul again." Phil growled.  
"Was he that bad?"  
"Let me put it this way, it took every favor I had to make sure the kids were interviewed by PSIA. As soon as I saw him, I knew right then and there that I should try to, pardon my language but I am a sailor, keep him the fuck away from the kids."  
"I see… when he interviewed me and Hiroaki seven years ago, he was a bit odd, but certainly not creepy like he was a moment ago. And what did he mean by 'the case isn't over'? I thought the kids were doing well?"  
"That's what Ross and Taichi-kun told me the other day; that all was being taken care of."  
"I'm now suddenly worried for our kids again…" She expressed her fear.  
"You and me both, Takaishi-kun."

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We all walked through the forest on the way back to the gate, all quietly chatting about what we just accomplished.  
"Bet the others will like our gift to them?" I asked.  
"Oh, yeah. They'll truly love it." Miyako told me.  
"The only thing that could've been better was seeing the look on Archnemon and Mummymon's faces when we wrecked their final tower!" I laughed.  
"They won't take that kindly, that much is true." Iori said.  
"I'm still a bit worried about that warning Qinglongmon gave us, and whoever Archnemon answers to." Osamu spoke up and Takeru, Hikari, and Ken all nodded.  
"You guys worry too much. We can take whatever those guys throw at us!" I declared.  
"I don't think underestimating them is wise, Daisuke." Ken reminded.  
"Indeed, who knows what they've got planned." worried Hikari.  
"Come on, guys! Lighten up, it's the holidays! We've worked hard and we should at least celebrate!" I told everyone which gave them all smiles.  
"Daisuke-kun is right. Let's not worry about those guys right now. Let's just relax and enjoy Christmas." Takeru agreed with me.  
"Now you're talking!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Ichijouji-san, that's enough for today." Ruki's boss told her at her job. Ruki looked at her watch.  
"Oh, it's this late already…" She began to remove her apron.  
"Osamu-chan has changed a lot, huh?"  
"Hmm?"  
"When I called you the other day, Osamu-chan answered the phone. He never picked up phone calls before, did he?" The woman asked as she was stringing along some beads for a necklace.  
"He still acts the same at home, though. As blunt as always." Ruki chuckled.

"So, now that we're here, may we please know what's going on?" Koushiro asked as all the Chosen Children and their Digimon were standing on the beach near the bay.  
"Well, we have a big Christmas present for you all." Daisuke smiled.  
"Present?" Taichi questioned.  
"Yeah." Miyako then walked forward and opened up her laptop. "Everyone, consider the Digital World now completely Dark Tower free!"  
"Alright!" "Yeah!" "Way to go!" "Great job!" "Awesome!" "So that was the surprised." The older children and Takeo praised the younger Chosen Children.  
"Wait! Wait! I've got a gift for you as well!" Mimi ran up and then soon pulled out some trinkets. "They're your very own Crests and Tags!" Mimi handed them replicas of the old Tags and Crests. Daisuke, Miyako and Iori's ones were split in half to share the two Crests that they had, like Daisuke's was one half courage, one half friendship. Ken and Osamu's were blank but Mimi informed them that their own Crests that they had could fit in so she didn't feel the need to make a copy of the Crests. Even Takeo got one which was a different design than any other one considering he didn't have an actual trait, but he appreciated it all the same.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

I quickly went back to the apartment to get my wallet which I accidently left before I headed over to the concert tent where Yamato's band was gonna play tonight. While Daisuke and his group were gonna be in Tamachi have a Christmas party at the Ichijouji's, the us older Chosen Children were gonna be in the crowd to watch Yamato play. When Agumon and I got towards the backstage area where some of the trailers were, I was surprised to see Sora there with Piyomon and holding a green present with a red bow on it.  
"Come on, Sora…" Piyomon said to her. "Why are you stopping here?"  
"Because…"  
"Sora!" She looked like she was going to break from nervousness as soon as I walked up to her. "What are you doing?"  
"Taichi…" She turned her head and tried to hide the present. The door opened and out walked Gabumon.  
"Wow, I smell something delicious!" Gabumon's mouth started to water.  
"What is it?" Agumon asked.

"Is that for Yamato?" I questioned.  
"Well, yeah…" answered Sora.  
"Is it homemade?"  
"Does that really matter?" I shook my head.  
"No, not at all."  
"Aren't you gonna bring them inside?" Gabumon wondered.  
"Sora's been hesitating for a while out here." Piyomon explained.  
"Hey! Piyomon!" Sora turned to her partner.

"What's the problem, Sora… come on." I inquired.  
"Well… this is the biggest show Yamato-kun and his band have to date, and I thought… maybe some nice homemade snacks would be a good luck charm." She told us.  
"And…? Why is it so hard for you to just give them?"  
"Because… Taichi, I'm supposed to-"  
"Let me stop you right there, Sora. Don't fret, okay? Yeah, we're going out, but I'm not a jealous boyfriend. I know why you're doing all this to be a great friend, Sora. You care about all of us, that's always been your thing and why we love you for it." She blushed. "So go ahead and give it to him! I trust you completely." Sora smiled at me.  
"Thanks, Taichi… that means a lot." She gave me a quick peck on the cheek. "Here you go, Gabumon." She handed him the gift.  
"Hey, he's gonna get them all!?" Agumon complained.  
"Don't worry, I'll make something extra special for you alone, Agumon."  
"Yummy!" Gabumon took the present and walked back into the large trailer.

"Taichi… seriously, thank you." Sora said once more.  
"Hey, that's what I'm here for." She then gave me a hug to which I reciprocated.  
"Taichi…" Agumon spoke up. I turned to look at him and Piyomon smiling at us. "You've grown up."  
"Shut up, you idiot!" I chuckled.  
"Excuse me! Get you of the way!" Sora and I looked back up and broke off the hug as we fell to the ground. All of which just to get out of the way as Jun ran right between with a load of gifts in her arms before shutting the door behind her! "Excuse me! This is for Yamato-kun!" We could hear her shout.  
"Hey! What are you doing here?!" We now heard Yamato shout.  
"Was that Jun-san?" questioned Sora.  
"Yeah, it was." I helped her up. "Come on, let's get out of here before she tackles three security guys to the ground."  
"Wait, could she really?"  
"Do you want to stay and find out?" We both laughed before Sora and I walked away shoulder to shoulder and arms locked.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

The sun was beginning to set as we finally got to Tamachi. Hard to really believe that he last time we were here was actually trying to confront Osamu only hours after we found out he was the Kaiser. I don't really understand why we never came over at any time since then, but we're here now and plan to has some great fun! Maybe I'll even catch Ken under the mistletoe!  
"Okay, and this is my room…" Osamu motioned his arms as we walked in.  
"Wow…" We all made our tiny comments. I looked over to a picture of what looked like a younger Osamu and Ken looking very happy.  
"Aw… how cute you guys looked!" I said causing them to blush so hard.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

As night fell across Tokyo, Yamato and the Teen-Age Wolves were up for their performance now at the concert tent by the Fuji TV building. The Chosen Children and their disguised Digimon all sat in the crowd as they watched the lights starting to go up and the music beginning to swell.  
"One, two, three, four!" Yamato shouted. _"We came across each other on the various paths we walk. We all hold something different close to our heart…"  
_ "Yamato's good at singing!" Gabumon praised.  
"Eh, he ain't no Phil Collins-agh!" Ross said before Mimi, who he had a shoulder wrapped over, playfully jabbed him in the side.  
"Be nice, Ross-chan." Mimi teased. The children then nearly jumped when they heard a scream and looked over to see Jun with pom-poms and screaming; all the while, Miyako's sister, Chizuru, was now suddenly trying to pretend that she wasn't with her.  
"L-O-V-E! Lovely Yamato!" Unbeknownst to all of them… things were going to take a turn very quick. Daisuke hadn't been wrong after the encounter with Qinglongmon when he saw a Dark Tower in the city. There was now one glowing red right outside the tent with Archnemon and Mummymon smiling at the sight.  
"Everything is ready. You just watch now, Chosen Children." Archnemon said. A new Digimon invasion was about to begin.

 _"…_ _I should head towards what I want to grasp; Open up my own world!"_ Yamato continued to sing until the sound system was beginning to suffer a feedback issue and causing the music to sound more distorted and broken.  
"It sounds weird…" Sora observed.  
"Some weird sound is getting mixed in." Taichi said.  
"Is something wrong with the instruments?" wondered Koushiro.  
"There's some noise." Sakurada leaned back in his chair and informed Chioka who was with Shigeru as they were running the recording of the concert.  
"Hey, that ain't good! This is a live show!" Chioka panicked. There suddenly was a loud rumbling before the speakers crackled and everyone was forced to cover their ears. "What the…" The answer soon came when a DarkTyranomon tore down the tent behind Yamato and his band and a swarm of Bakemon flew in from behind.

"DIGIMON!" The Chosen Children collectively shouted.  
"What's going on here?!" Jou questioned. DarkTyranomon roared as Yamato's bandmates ran away from the stage while he ran for the other Chosen Children.  
"Our live show…" Chioka cried.  
"But this could get us some high ratings…" Sakurada tried to look more positively on the situation.  
"That's not the concern here!" The audience all ran out of the tent while the Chosen Children regrouped and held their ground.  
"Agumon, evolve!" Taichi ordered. Agumon tried but failed.  
"I can't…"  
"Damn it… why?"  
"Wait a minute… no…" Ross muttered.  
"What is it?" Koushiro asked. "Never mind, tell us in a moment! Let's go outside!"  
"Move!" Yamato shouted as they ran. It wasn't just at the concert tent. Digimon were swarming all over the district. Monzaemon was walking the streets, Numemon were running wild at Aqua City, Megadramon flying over the bay, Kuwagamon and Snimon at the Ferris Wheel: it was pure chaos. The teens ran outside and soon saw a sight that chilled their blood.  
"That's…" Taichi looked at the Dark Tower.

In Tamachi, all seemed calm at the Ichijouji residence. The Digimon were all happily eating plenty of snacks while the children were playing a card game.  
"Doubt!" Miyako shouted and pointed at Daisuke. "Doubt, doubt, doubt!"  
"Too bad…" He smirked as he won. "There." Miyako soon moaned.  
"I can't hold any more cards!" Everyone began to laugh, including Osamu much to most of the group's surprise.  
"Ichijouji-san is…" Iori said.  
"Laughing!" finished Miyako.  
"It's the first time I see Ichijouji-san laughing like that." Hikari smiled.  
"Really?" questioned Daisuke. Osamu blushed again.  
"Jeez, Onii-san… how many times you gonna turn red tonight?" Ken teased his older sibling.

 _"_ _I never thought a day would come when I'd hear children laughing in this house."_ Ruki thought to herself in the kitchen as she was finishing up the Christmas dinner. She almost began to cry before the phone began to ring. She walked over and soon answered it. "Hello, Ichijouji residence."  
"You know, you're actually cute when you laugh, well, maybe not as cute as Ken-kun." Miyako said causing the brothers to blush once again.  
"Hey, I'm also…" Daisuke tried to argue with her when the door was knocked on.  
"Osamu-chan, Ken-chan, you have a phone call from Yagami-san and McGlathery-san." Ruki informed.  
"From my brothers?" questioned Hikari.

"Damn it… they ruined the contest!" Yamato growled as the concert tent collapsed under DarkTyranomon's feet.  
"And that Dark Tower is acting like any other so we can't evolve…" Koushiro informed.  
"Then we just have to work around it!" declared Taichi. "Now, everyone!"  
"Digimental Up!" All the Chosen Children shouted.  
"Agumon, Armor-Evolve! Courageous Flame, KAJIGREYMON!"  
"Gabumon, Armor-Evolve! Thunderous Friendship! RAIMON!"  
"Piyomon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Love, ROBINMON!"  
"Guilmon, Armor-Evolve! Honorable Fire, WAIBANMON!"  
"Tentomon, Armor-Evolve! Drilling Intelligence, FORCEBEEMON!"  
"Palmon, Armor-Evolve! Roots of Purity, KONTEIMON!"  
"Gomamon, Armor-Evolve! Sincere Waves, METALSEALMON!" The battalion of Armor Digimon stared down the large DarkTyranomon and the Bakemon that supported him.

"There it is!" Miyako pointed ahead as several of the younger Chosen flew towards the area.  
"Destroy the Dark Tower!" Daisuke ordered as Osamu and Monodramon hung on to him as they rode on Lighdramon. _"A Dark Tower… I thought I was seeing things, but…"_ Daisuke thought to himself.  
"Lightning Blade!" "Big Crack!" The two attacks that were launched ended up destroying the Dark Tower.  
"Nice timing, you guys!" Mimi praised.  
"Okay, Monodramon, you can evolve normally now!" Osamu turned to his partner.  
"Right! Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!"  
"Blaze Horn!" KajiGreymon charged forward and struck DarkTyranomon in the gut before locking hands with him in a struggle. At the Fuji building, the lights and computers were going haywire as employees looked out the window down below to the fight.  
"That's…" Hiroaki noticed.  
"This is… it's like three years ago! What's going on!?" Chioka questioned.  
"Do you want to listen to a sutra?" Sakurada asked as he pulled out a Walkman.

"Metal Wing!" Robinmon's attack went after Megadramon but got a bit close to the TV building.  
"Please, don't destroy the Fuji TV building again…" Chioka bit his nails as Shigeru hid behind him.  
"Those monsters… Like three years ago…" Jun said as she and Chizuru fled back to her house and watched the fighting from a balcony. The other Digimon split up and took on the different rampages. Raimon and ForceBeemon dealt with Kuwagamon. Digmon, Konteimon and Waibanmon fought Snimon. Tetermon, Strikedramon, and Lighdramon avoided Monzaemon's attacks. Holsmon, MetalSealmon, Pegasmon and Nefertimon faced down Phantomon, the Bakemon and the Numemon.  
"They just never end!" Sora shouted.  
"Damn it… what should we do?" Ross questioned.  
"Okay, that's all we can do." Jou talked with Koushiro who had his laptop out. "Everyone, gather all the Digimon in one place!"  
"We'll send them back to the Digital World!" Koushiro informed.

"Right!" Miyako nodded. "Holsmon!"  
"Understood! Udjat Gaze!" His paralyzing attack struck the smaller Digimon and stopped them in their tracks.  
"Sanctuary Bind!" Pegasmon and Nefertimon did the combined attack and soon wrapped up all the immobilized Digimon in a giant net of light.  
"Izumi-senpai! Is the computer ready?" Miyako asked him.  
"It's already running!"  
"Then allow me." She held her D-3 up. "Digital Gate, open!" The gate opened and just like what happened in Kyoto, the Digimon were sent through the gate.  
"Alright, let's keep going!" Daisuke said.  
"We're counting on you!" Taichi shouted.

"But… why did Digimon appear in this world again?" Hikari wondered out loud.  
"And that Dark Tower…" added Takeru. "When Qinglongmon said the real enemy is somewhere else… Was he referring to this?"  
"But… the evolution control function of the Dark Towers should have disappeared along with the Kaiser!" Iori pointed out as KajiGreymon tossed DarkTyranomon towards the gate.  
"It's Archnemon…" Osamu muttered. "She can switch between this world and the Digital World anytime."  
"What?" Taichi turned his head back to him.  
"She can do that?" Daisuke was dumbfounded by that info.  
"When I first met Archnemon, it was in this world… in my own bedroom. I thought I was dreaming, but it was real!" He said as the last of the wild Digimon were being rounded up and sent back home.

Megadramon and Monzaemon were lured back to the area.  
"There are two Perfect-Levels left!" Ken pointed out before looking and nodding with Daisuke.  
"Jogress Evolution!" He shouted as Lighdramon, Tetermon, and Waibanmon devolved back to their pervious forms.  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" "Guilmon, evolve! GROWMON!"  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON! I'll take the dragon, you handle the teddy bear!" MechaRaptormon ordered as he took to the skies.  
"Got it! Esgrima!" Both Jogress Digimon dealt with their opponents in short order before tossing them right towards the laptop.  
"Mission accomplished!" Miyako gave a thumbs up.  
"We did it!" cheered Daisuke.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Everyone followed Ken and I down to the station as we finally relaxed from the chaos that was caused by tonight. Still, this was a very disturbing revelation. Should've guess Archnemon had some plan like this.  
"But if that Digimon can really switch between the Digital and the Real World so easily…" Koushiro said.  
"It'll be a problem." Yamato growled. As we walked, we all stopped when we heard Archnemon's chuckling echoing over the sounds of the city.  
"We'll get her for sure!" promised Daisuke. A minute later, we finally reached the station.  
"Sorry about messing up your party." Taichi apologized to me and Ken.  
"No, it's okay." I told him.  
"Look, we'll make it up and hang out at your place some other time." Daisuke said.  
"Thanks, Daisuke. We'll look forward to that." Ken told him.  
"Bye." We both bowed and soon walked away from the others and headed back home.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

"Ichijouji-kun has changed, hasn't he?" Sora observed.  
"He sure has." Hikari agreed with her.  
"Really? I haven't noticed anything…" Daisuke said.  
"You're hopeless…" Taichi rolled his eyes. "Well, I guess that's what makes you who you are." We all began to laugh.  
"As funny as this all is… Mimi… I'm afraid we're gonna have to break up." I turned to her. Her eyes widened.  
"What!? Why!?"  
"Well, after tonight, I bet your mother is gonna want to move back to the States because I broke my promise about another Digimon incident from happening." I gave a cheek grin before she grinned too and shoved me in the shoulder.  
"Oh, why I ought!" She then began to laugh once more and the rest of us followed suit once more.

 _"_ _Marv!"  
"Harry?"  
"Why the hell did you take your shoes off?"  
_ _"_ _Why the hell you dressed like a chicken?"  
"I'm up here, you morons! Come and get me!"  
"Whoaaaahhhh!"  
_ _"_ _You guys give up, or you thirsty for more?"  
_ "Tell you guys what; after tonight, **_Home Alone_** is certainly what we needed." I said as I leaned back on the couch.  
"Agreed… still, at the end of the day, I'm just happy to be with Tailmon, Agumon, Guilmon and my two favorite guys in the world." Hikari said as she wrapped her arms over our shoulders and hugged Taichi and myself.  
"Really? I don't see Takeru-kun anywhere." Taichi teased and caused her to blush. "Merry Christmas, you guys." Taichi said to all of us.  
"Merry Christmas." The five of us said back.

 _Motomiya Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 0731 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"AHHH!" I found myself waking up upon hearing Jun scream. Normally, I would assume that to be some gift she just opened up considering it is Christmas morning, but that didn't sound like an excited scream; more like a horrified one.  
"What? What is it?" I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.  
"That's… last night's…" She muttered as she looked to the TV.  
"Last night, during the live show at the Fuji TV building, the sudden appearance of a black tower caused a panicked audience to say they saw monsters." The news reporter said on TV. My eyes suddenly widened when I saw more Dark Towers… in other parts of the world! "And today, it looks like the same black towers are suddenly appearing all over the world. "We'll cover this story as we find out more details." This was really bad. Dark Towers were appearing all over the world and probably right behind them were gates that were allowing Digimon into our world.

And there was nothing we could do to stop it…

* * *

Okay, so got quite a text wall to write so here we go.

First, that little moment not to far away from the start... now some of you guys know why I wrote that little one-shot 'Once in a Lifetime' a while back. I'll explain a bit more later on that one.

Second, for all you Taiora fans, you're welcome for that little scene. Especially you MadDog, considering you say it's the worst moment in the series.

Next, it isn't Christmas to me unless I see a film that has a crazy cab driving ghost, a ghost that beats the crap out of the people she's helping, (and that's played by the amazing Carol Kane who I would totally cast as Kammy Koopa if they did a Mario movie) and a reaper that has a TV screen for a head all ganging up on Bill Murray. Also, it isn't Christmas if I don't see Harry and Marv get the shit knocked out of them.

Finally, little note, in the original episode it was actually Miyako's sister, Momoe that was with Jun, but considering I aged her down to Jou's age, I replaced Momoe with Miyako's other sister.

Wow, that wasn't as much of a text wall as I thought. Oh, well. See you all for the next one. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	45. Maximum Firepower! Imperialdramon!

New chapter, who dis?

Dang, we sure got a lot of fun reviews for the last one. I should do more Taiora scenes! Thanks to **GreenD109** , **MadDogLucario96** , **DracoFogg** , **DigimonAT0138** , **Whiteling** , and **Super Saiyan 3 Odd** for all the reviews. Oh, and to AT and Green, we've know about Phil's promotion since June of 2002. I mentioned it when Ross explained that he was going to assist Hiroaki at the camp.  
"Besides, you haven't taken a vacation day since you were reassigned to the base. I mean, for crying out loud, you run it now since you were promoted to Rear Admiral two months ago."

Anyways, that all said... we've got some big trouble!

* * *

 **Chapter 44: Maximum Firepower! Imperialdramon!**

 _Motomiya Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 0736 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

This was really bad. The Dark Towers showing up were terrible enough but if, and I know it's coming, Digimon start showing up… it's going to be massed chaos. Jun and I kept our eyes glued to the screen as a news reporter continued to speak.  
"I repeat… Mysterious black towers similar to that which suddenly appeared in Odaiba last night have been reported to be seen all over the world. As of now, the locations where black towers in Japan have been sighted are Sapporo in Hokkaido… Ah! We have breaking news! It's a monster! A monster has appeared where the black tower stands!" Knew that was coming. The camera that was filming the Sapporo Clock Tower in Sapporo got blurry as I could just make out Knightmon walking towards it.  
"This is bad…" I muttered to myself to which Jun gave me a look.  
"Daisuke… do you know about this…?" Aw, crap. I think she knows.

Thankfully, the phone rang before she could interrogate me. I answered to hear Takeru's voice on the other end.  
"Daisuke-kun? You there?"  
"Yeah, I am… I see it too."  
"Alright, that's good to know. Listen, head over to Koushiro-san's house. We're all meeting up there to try to figure out how we stop this nightmare."  
"I hear ya, I'll be there quick." I hung up and looked back to the screen.  
"Right now, the confirmed areas where monsters have appeared here in Japan are the following: Mount Aso in the city of Aso, Kyushu, the Sapporo Clock Tower in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Osaka Castle in city of Osaka, Tamachi Station here in Tokyo…" The reporter read off but that last one caught my attention.  
"Wait? Did he say Tamachi?" I said to myself.

"Hurry up you guys!" Ross shouted as we all started running towards Koushiro's. Ross was way up ahead with Yamato while Taichi, Hikari and myself, along with our Digimon, were bringing up the rear by a good hundred meters as Yamato and Ross were running across the street. However, when we got to the crossing, I suddenly stopped and Taichi noticed.  
"What are you doing, Daisuke? Hurry up!" I sighed before looking up at him.  
"I'm… going to Tamachi." I told him.  
"What?"  
"Didn't you hear? A tower was in Tamachi. That means that Ken and Osamu-san are in danger. I'm gonna go over there and help them, they probably aren't even aware of the tower!"  
"But Tamachi isn't the only place in trouble." Taichi tried to argue with me. "People all over the world are in danger."

Hikari soon noticed we were both stopped and turned around to join us.  
"We should meet up at Koushiro's place for now and come up with a plan." Taichi continued to explain.  
"But Ken and Osamu-san are important friends! We simply can't just leaving them alone without at least some help!" I countered.  
"Daisuke-kun…" muttered Hikari. Taichi sighed as he relented.  
"I see… you're right. I'm sorry, Ken-kun and Osamu-kun are our friends and probably will need help. Alright then, leave this to us. You go to Tamachi." I smiled as Taichi said that.  
"Yeah!" I nodded. "Come on, Chibimon!" I ran the other way and soon was on the back of Lighdramon as we dashed to Tamachi.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

As the news reported earlier, it wasn't just Japan that was having to deal with a Digimon infestation. The Dark Towers were all over and Digimon were coming through and panic was beginning to set in. At Niagara Falls, a TonosamaGekomon was taking a nice nap in the falls, Flymon were flying over the Nazca Lines in Peru, at Nathan Road in Hong Kong, a Mojyamon was walking the streets, near the Gold Coast of Australia, a fishing vessel was intercepted by a Gesomon and an Ebidramon. In response, nations were launching military forces in an effort to stop the Digimon and destroy the Dark Towers. However, as soon as they entered the Tower's sphere of influence, their computers would malfunction and make them unable to properly attack the obelisks. Supercomputers that countries had which was supposed to be storing any of the data about the Digital World they had learned three years ago were suddenly turning up blanks. It was if someone had been altering the files… which was actually the truth. The act was so precise that no one had even noticed until it was too late. In the Digital World, Qinglongmon hovered in the mountains above a small man in a white robe that was bowing down to him. A small sphere on the Ultimate dragon's body soon floated down to the man who held it in his hands. He bowed once more before Qinglongmon started to disappeared behind a mass wall of dark clouds.

 _Izumi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 0757 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

All of us, excluding Daisuke and the Ichijouji', were cramped up in Koushiro's room as he typed away on his laptop.  
"Take a look at this." He said. Kinda hard to see without crawling over someone, Koushiro. "E-mails keep coming from Chosen Children all over the world."  
"Amazing…" Iori was wide eyed. "There are more than two hundred e-mails!"  
"Are there that many Chosen Children in this world?" questioned Miyako.  
"Like Michael-kun, they're children who witnessed the Digimon who appeared in this world three years ago." Koushiro explained to us. "Or, they're like Miyako-kun, children who sent e-mails supporting Omegamon back in March of 2000. In addition, by some chance, children all around the world were chosen."  
"Just like you told us before." I reminded. "You asked us to keep in touch with them through the Internet just in case something like this happened." A few months ago, Koushiro asked us to keep track of some of the other Chosen Children which we did. "Now, now it's the time for all of us to join forces and fight together!" I declared as we heard the sound of a whistle from a kettle pot going off in the kitchen. Koushiro's mother was making us all some tea.

 _Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 0803 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Talk about a wakeup call. What should've been a time for celebration due to it being Christmas morning, was replaced with terror. Watching the TV and seeing Dark Towers springing up all over the world. Here I thought we destroyed some of the last objects of my cruel reign, only for it to follow me home! People were running in panic down the street as it was being taken over by a large triceratops - like Digimon that Monodramon told us was Triceramon. Ken and I ducked into an alleyway as we hid.  
"I'm counting on you, Monodramon! Evolve!" I shouted. Monodramon nodded and strained… but nothing happened.  
"Osamu-chan, I can't evolve!"  
"Then that means there must be a Dark Tower nearby." Wormmon guessed.  
"That also means… it's them." Ken said as we both turned around and saw Archnemon and Mummymon on a billboard that was on top of a building and were starting right down at us.

"Too bad, kids." She taunted us.  
"How's about calling your friends before Triceramon squashes you?" chimed in Mummymon before he laughed.  
"Lighting Blade!" We heard Lighdramon's attack ring out before the sound of an explosion filled the air. We soon saw the Dark Tower toppled over before Lighdramon and Daisuke ran in. Daisuke hopped off his partner's back and Lighdramon devolved back into V-mon.  
"Daisuke!" "Motomiya-kun!" We called out for him.  
"Hey, you guys need a hand?" He gave us a winning smile.  
"Good timing, Daisuke." Ken told him.  
"Hey, say thanks later, we've got to do something about that Digimon." I reminded them before pointing to Triceramon who was still rampaging. We looked and saw him smash his foot down on a 2000 Toyota Vitz before he roared once more. We all ran up to meet him and to try and stop him from causing any more damage.

"Let's go, V-mon!" "Let's go, Wormmon!" "Let's go, Monodramon!" The three of us said to our partners at the same time.  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" "Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!"  
"Spiking Finish!" Stingmon dived down on Triceramon's back but found his stinger didn't penetrate the hard armored skin of the dinosaur Digimon. The three horned Digimon responded by quickly turning his head and smacking Stingmon hard into a nearby building, causing a bunch of damage. XV-mon moved towards the triceratops' blind spot.  
"X-Laser!" The attack did nothing but just make him angry. He charged forward and flattened XV-mon into the wall of a building. Strikedramon soon jumped up and got on his back and started to ride him. However, he was soon hit by Triceramon's tail and throwing him to the ground before he stomped Strikedramon into the pavement and started running around again.

"Go, Triceramon! Good, good! Keep it up!" I heard Mummymon cheered.  
"He won't listen to anything you say." I overheard Archnemon's loud voice as she was trying to talk to Mummymon over the chaos. "He's not a Dark Tower Digimon, he's just a lost Digimon." Ah, so similar to last night then. "Still, why did only one of them come to help? Where are all the others?" That's a good question, where's Ross when I need him?  
"What can they do against a worldwide attack like this? I'm sure they're all crying by now." I'm certain he's wrong about that… but I hope they've got at least a good reason of why they're not here. My attention went back to the issue at hand. Triceramon was really tough, so I had to assume that he must be a Perfect-Level Digimon. Daisuke and Ken made the same assumption.  
"Ken, Jogress!"  
"Got it!"  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!"

Paildramon went right to work as Triceramon charged at him once again. This time, Paildramon grabbed him by his horns and stood fast as the dinosaur tried to gain ground. Ken turned to Daisuke as he opened up his laptop.  
"Digital Gate, open!" Daisuke held up his D-3 as we planned to send the Digimon straight back to the Digital World.  
"Paildramon, bring him to the gate!" Ken ordered. He was unable to do that as Triceramon overpowered him and rammed him into another building.  
"Paildramon!" Daisuke cried.  
"Strikedramon!" I called out for my partner. Strikedramon got back up and tried to assist but was struck down once again by that nimble tail.

Things soon took a worse turn as I overheard Mummymon once more.  
"Archnemon, it looks like their friends aren't coming, so this is our chance to get rid of Paildramon. Check this out." He jumped off the roof and turned into his Digimon form and landed behind Paildramon.  
"Look out!" Strikedramon groaned as Mummymon aimed at Paildramon's exposed back.  
"Take this!" Paildramon roared in pain as he was hit in the back before Strikedramon forced Mummymon to take a few steps back… and turn his fire onto him. Paildramon staggered in pain while Strikedramon couldn't take the force of the attack and devolved back into Monodramon.  
"Paildramon!" "Monodramon!" The three of us cried out for our partners.

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

Koushiro soon pulled up a map of the world on his computer and red dots were flashing all over it.  
"This is the gate sensor's data on the locations where gates were opened."  
"Th-then… Digimon have appeared in all those marked locations?" Iori worried.  
"Right now, all the gates are closed. To send the Digimon back to the Digital World, we have to go there and re-open the gate with our D-3s."  
"That many places?" Miyako was dumbfounded by the suggestion.  
"Can't we go from the Digital World?" Taichi suggested.  
"We can only open one gate in each area." Hikari feared. "Getting to the gates all over the world would take too long."  
"The Dark Towers around the world are causing distortions." Takeru reminded. "We have to at least destroy the Dark Towers, or something even worse might happen."  
"I see… that's what you mean. Understood. I'll try." Koushiro said to himself as Takeru was talking.

"Everyone, please stand back." He requested. We did as he asked and backed up. He opened his laptop and then pointed it and his computer screen at each other. Two bright lights shot out of them and collided with each other that soon made a man in a white robe appear before us out of thin air.  
"A phantom? A ghost!?" Miyako cried in panic.  
"Please calm down, Miyako-san!" Poromon tried to calm her.  
"It was successful, Gennai-san." Our jaws suddenly dropped.  
"What!?" Ross exclaimed in shock.  
"Gennai-san!?" Taichi said.  
"Gennai-san, is he…?" Iori questioned.  
"He's the one who helped us at the Digital World back then." Takeru explained to him and Miyako.

Gennai took off his hood and revealed that he was no longer an old man but rather looked like that younger version of himself that we saw when Homeostasis explained how we became the Chosen Children.  
"It's been a while, Chosen Children." He said.  
"No way!" Oh, boy, I think Miyako now finds him cute. "I heard that Gennai-san was very old, but he's actually pretty handsome!"  
"Gennai-san, the world is in trouble." Koushiro brought us all back to the crisis at hand.  
"I know. That's why I'm here." He then pulled out this small blue sphere that looked like it glowed with energy.  
"What is that?" Iori questioned.  
"This is one of Qinglongmon's twelve Digicores. Qinglongmon gave me this sphere in order to help you Chosen Children. Now, your Digivices." We all soon held out our D-3s. We all looked to the Digicore as it began to glow bright.  
"What is this feeling?" Tailmon questioned.  
"It's really warm." Patamon informed.  
"Upamon, evolve! ARMADIMON!" "Poromon, evolve! HAWKMON!"  
"They evolved!" exclaimed Miyako. We then suddenly saw the Digicore shoot a bright beam of light that went out the window and arced into the air.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

Mummymon cackled once more as he struck Paildramon with his rifle's fire while stepping on Monodramon. Paildramon clutched his chest to brace against the attack but he left his back open to Triceramon who struck him and knocked him up into the air. Daisuke and I ran over to him, but Mummymon turned his fire towards us and caused us to jump out of the way. His attack struck a building that sent large debris falling right towards us!  
"Ken-chan! Daisuke!" Paildramon cried as the debris approached. However, suddenly he was hit by a bright light and somehow achieved the impossible.  
"Paildramon, ultimate-evolve! IMPERIALDRAMON!" Our eyes were wide as we looked up and saw our new Digimon above us, protecting us from the debris. Imperialdramon was a giant winged, draconic, quadrupedal Digimon with a giant cannon on his back. And that face… quite intimidating.  
"Are you okay, Daisuke, Ken-chan?"  
"Y… you…" Daisuke was dumbfounded.  
"Paildramon… evolved…" I muttered.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Imperialdramon knocked away some of the debris on his back before he turned his attention back towards Triceramon and Mummymon.  
"This is terrible! Just now, under that bright light, the monster has grown larger!" A reporter shouted on Koushiro's laptop.  
"Wh… what is that?" Iori questioned as the rest of the Chosen Children saw Imperialdramon on the news.  
"Imperialdramon." Gennai answered. "Absorbing Qinglongmon's light, Paildramon evolved to Ultimate-Level."  
"Qinglongmon's light?" inquired Tailmon.  
"Yes. You also absorbed that light. You should be able to reach Perfect-Level now."  
"Perfect-Level?" All the Digimon got excited by that news. "That's great."

Imperialdramon continued to stare down the two Digimon looking at him.  
"You evolved again, which means… Ultimate-Level?" Mummymon began to panic. "Is that even fair?"  
"Imperialdramon! Save Monodramon and deal with Triceramon!" Osamu ordered.  
"Yeah!" "What he said!" Ken and Daisuke agreed with the plan, considering that Imperialdramon was their Digimon and not Osamu's. Imperialdramon took a few steps forward causing Mummymon to retreat and free Monodramon. The small dragon ran back to Osamu as fast as he could with his hurt body while Triceramon charged forward. Imperialdramon just simply grabbed him in one of his claws and the dinosaur was immobile.  
"Now! The gate!" Imperialdramon advised.  
"Got it!" Ken opened his laptop again. "Daisuke!"  
"Digital Gate, open!" Triceramon was placed in front of the screen and quickly sent back home to the Digital World.  
"We did it!" Osamu breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Let's hurry, Daisuke, Ken-chan, Osamu-chan! We have to destroy the other Dark Towers!" Imperialdramon told them.  
"But how?" Daisuke asked as the three boys ran towards the titanic dragon. A light shined on Imperialdramon's back and the three of them were dragged into it before they found themselves in a protective dome on his body.  
"I know where the Dark Towers are located." Imperialdramon soon took off into the sky before flying rapidly into the atmosphere. "Positron Laser!" The large cannon on his back glowed before firing off multiple beams that went directly towards the Dark Towers all over Japan and destroyed them. He then flew off towards Sapporo in a flash.  
"Aah, damn it…" Mummymon cursed as he and Archnemon watched Imperialdramon fly away.  
"I didn't think the divine power could affect this world." Archnemon said.  
"Daisuke-kun, Ken-kun and Ichijouji-san…" Takeru said as the other Chosen Children saw the bright streak of light that was Imperialdramon.  
"You shouldn't just leave it to them." Gennai told them. "You all have your own tasks. It's time for all Chosen Children to combine their powers."

In Sapporo, Imperialdramon landed forcing Knightmon to turn around and pull out his sword towards the large dragon. Daisuke and the Ichijouji brothers were let out back on the street as they got the laptop ready once again.  
"We're counting on you, Imperialdramon!" Monodramon cried as he rested in Osamu's arms. Knightmon was quickly grabbed and sent back to the Digital World before he even knew what hit him.  
"Okay, next place is Osaka!" Daisuke informed as the boys continued their work.  
"Please tell me. What have you been doing all this time, Gennai-san?" Iori asked the old ally.  
"Three years ago, the Digital World came abnormally close to the Real World. Do you remember?"  
"Yes, I remember." Iori nodded.  
"Everyone in the world witnessed that incident. The final battle with Apoclymon. Ever since, in many country's military labs, secret research on the Digimon and the Digital World began. If the Digimon became public knowledge, they could be used for evil purposes."

"Einstein once said: 'I do not know with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.' At that point, he was just referring to nuclear weapons… but it's more than possible that using Digimon as weapons of mass destruction would easily be just as feasible." Ross explained.  
"Exactly." Gennai nodded in agreement. "Without anyone noticing, we slowly started to modify the data in order to hide the existence of the Digital World and the Digimon." At the same time in Osaka, Imperialdramon was throwing WaruMonzaemon into the gate. Ken closed up the computer as the dark teddy bear was sent back.  
"Kyushu is next!" Osamu determined.

"'Us'? You have partners, Gennai-san?" Miyako wondered.  
"Yeah. They're cooperating with the world's Chosen Children now." At Mount Aso, Drimogemon was sent the same way as the other wild Digimon that came to Earth: throw right back into the gate.  
"We got all the Digimon that had appeared in Japan." Ken informed.  
"Yeah." Daisuke gave a fist pump. "Let's hurry back to Odaiba and the others!" Moments later, the boys were riding with Imperialdramon once again on the way back to Tokyo.  
"Actually, Gennai-san was the one who showed me the Chosen Children network." confessed Koushiro.  
"The world's Chosen Children and my partners have gathered the lost Digimon in certain places. The places are New York, Hong Kong, Moscow, Mexico, Rio, the Gold Coast of Australia and Paris. These seven locations."  
"Daisuke-kun, Ken-kun and Osamu-san are back!" Hikari informed as she looked out the window and sees Imperialdramon land in Daiba Park.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We regrouped at the park and filled in the guys about what was going on. I apologized to Osamu for not being there for him, but he was quick to forgive me. He did express a bit envy with the fact that Ken's Digimon partner was actually able to be an Ultimate. I laughed as he said that and told him I knew the feeling of a younger sibling outshining me. I had the same feeling when Agumon was able to first be WarGreymon… though that was not at the forefront of my mind that day considering we were still fighting VenomVamdemon.  
"Now then, the other Chosen Children can't open a gate. Only you can open the Digital Gate with a D-3. So you will all fly with Imperialdramon to these seven locations, join forces with the local Chosen Children, and send the Digimon back to the Digital World." Gennai briefed us.  
"Sounds simple enough." Mimi said.  
"Eh, knowing our luck, that might be a bit more difficult than we thing." Jou rubbed his head.  
"It'll be fine." Daisuke boasted. "After all we just went all over Japan in an instant! Going around the world will be easy!"  
"Imperialdramon won't take more than thirty minutes to travel around the world." Gennai told us. "Now, my partners around the world are waiting. Go, Chosen Children." He soon vanished in a beam of light.

"Gennai-san!" "He disappeared…" Miyako and Iori were surprised.  
"I'm sure he's returned to his own duties." Sora assured them.  
"Okay, let's go around the world!" Taichi declared.  
"Right." We all nodded.  
"Koushiro." We heard a woman's voice from behind us. We turned to find Koushiro's mother holding a wrapped up box in her arms.  
"Mom…" He ran up to her. "Please don't worry. Um… I'll come back as soon as possible." She held out the box. "What's this?"  
"I had the feeling you were all going somewhere… So I made some onigiri." He then took it from her.  
"Thanks, Mom." She just smiled as we all walked away before heading out on our mission. Fate of the world is at stake and we're the only ones who can save it. I hate to say it but this is starting to get mundane.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A group of onlookers were watching Imperialdramon take off from Daiba Park as a news van carrying Hiroaki drove up.  
"Yamato… Takeru…" He muttered as he watched the dragon take off into the skies.  
"Nothing!" The cameraman with him complained as he tried to film Imperialdramon. "I can't record anything with this noise! And it was such a scoop!"  
"Don't worry about it! We don't have to film it." He said. It was now twenty minutes to noon in Tokyo when the Chosen Children were soon off as they prepared for their latest challenge.  
"After we built all those Dark Towers around the world…" Mummymon growled as he and Archnemon looked to the contrail that Imperialdramon gave out. "Those kids are so annoying!" The chirping of a cellphone ringtone went out to which Archnemon answered the cellphone she had.  
"Yes. Right away." She then hung up. "Don't stay there whining forever. We got our next order."  
"Right."  
"While they're away from Japan…" She giggled nefariously. "Come on, there's no time. Let's go, Mummymon."  
"Yeah."

The plan those two had was anything but good for the Chosen Children…

* * *

Yeah, we all know what's coming next, and it isn't going to be good.

Nothing much more to say for this one, so see you all next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	46. Battle Royale! New York and Hong Kong!

And the world tour begins!

Shoutout to **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **MadDogLucario96** for the reviews.

By the way, I'm listing to the _**Back to the Future**_ soundtrack while editing this... funny considering who's appearing in this chapter.

Don't got much to say for this one at the start, so let's go on with it.

* * *

 **Chapter 45: Battle Royale! New York and Hong Kong!**

 _Skies Above Japan. December 25th, 2002. 1145 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

High above Earth at the International Space Station, news of what was going on was reaching the astronauts on board as they looked down to the planet.  
"What? Monsters around the world?" One of the female astronauts said.  
"Not only that, some black monolith-like towers are appearing as well." One of the male astronauts replied. "Just what is happening on Earth?" He asks as he looks out the window and sees a bright light screaming across the atmosphere.  
"What is that?" The woman asked.  
"An unidentified flying object…"

The object wasn't a UFO but rather Imperialdramon that soared through the heavens. With him were the Chosen Children as they were heading to their respective locations where they were to rally with other Chosen Children around the world and send back home any wild Digimon. However, there was still the issue of the Dark Towers in the other parts of the world that weren't in the seven locations they were meeting up. That wasn't a problem for Imperialdramon whose Positron Laser opened fired and destroyed towers all over. From Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, to Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Alcatraz in San Francisco, the deserts of Arizona, the wide open wastes of Northern Canada, the towers were destroyed.

Soon the children were sent in their respective groups. Taichi and Takeru were dropped off in Paris to meet up with Chosen Children in Western Europe and Africa; some children from South Africa were flying all the way to Paris. In Hong Kong, Koushiro and Hikari would meet up Chosen Children all across Asia; from China, Mongolia, Far East Russia, and much of South East Asia. Jou and Iori were dropped off in Sydney and were sailing north to the Gold Coast to meet with the Oceania Chosen Children; kids from Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and other islands and countries of the Pacific. Ross and Miyako would brace the cold of Moscow as Eastern Europe, Russian and Middle Eastern Chosen Children rallied towards them. Osamu and Sora were dropped off in Rio to meet with the Chosen Children of South America. As for Daisuke, Ken, Mimi, and Yamato, they all headed for Miami where they would part ways. Daisuke and Mimi would go to New York, Ken and Yamato would go to the Yucatan Peninsula.

 _Miami Beach, Miami, Florida, United States. December 24th, 2002. 2215 Hours (EST); 1215 Hours (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Back in America once again. Hopefully things will be a bit more simpler than the last time I came to the country. The last thing I think we need on top of all this is another Chocomon incident. Imperialdramon charged his Positron Laser once more and destroyed the last Dark Tower that was out of the way of our destinations. The tower was in the surf right off the beach with a crowd of onlookers before we landed and were let off. Imperialdramon soon devolved back into V-mon and Wormmon.  
"Okay, we're here!" I said as V-mon looked over himself.  
"Huh? Why am I at Child-Level?" He questioned.  
"Must be because of Qinglongmon's light that Gennai-san gave us."  
"Right!"  
"Okay, Mimi-san… so what's the plan?"  
"Well, Michael was supposed to pick us up here…" She said as she looked around.  
"Daisuke! Mimi! Ken! {Over here!}" We heard Michael's voice before we saw him on top of a small wall that separated the beach from the road.  
"Michael!" I waved back at him.  
"{Hey, how are you doing?}"

We soon found ourselves in Miami International Airport where we were to part ways with Ken and Yamato who planned on heading to Mexico.  
"{Okay, so Ken, Yamato; Ross's father called in some favors and got you guys a SH-60 Seahawk helicopter, curtesy of the Navy, to carry you guys to Yucatan.}" Michael explained as he pointed to the helicopter with a few guys in navy uniforms waiting right by it.  
"Got it." Yamato nodded.  
"{Daisuke, Mimi and I will take a jet to New York with me.}"  
"Right." Mimi and I nodded. We waved goodbye to Ken and Yamato as they hopped on the helicopter while Mimi and I climbed onto the jet.  
"Thanks for the ride!" I said to the pilot as I turned… and saw Michael's father sitting right in the back reading a book. Wow… his dad really was actor Michael J. Fox.

"{What's the matter, Daisuke}" Michael tapped me on the shoulder.  
"I thought you and Ross were joking about your father." He nervously chuckled.  
"Why do you think we kept Ross from coming?" Mimi giggled. "{Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Fox.}" Mimi bowed.  
"{It's no problem. Michael told me what was going on and I wanted to help anyway I could.}" He said.  
"{Come on, we should probably get going.}" Michael informed as we all took our seats.  
"{Good idea. Bill! Let's get it going!}" He shouted to the pilot who nodded and we soon took off out of the airport and headed for New York.

 _Niagara Falls, United States. December 24th, 2002. 2257 Hours. (EST); 1257 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

When TonosamaGekomon arrived on Earth and rested in Niagara Falls, Canadian and American troops were quick to respond and were soon keeping a careful, but distant eye on him as he continued to sleep in the water.  
"It's not causing any trouble at the moment, but…" An US colonel looked through a pair of binoculars as he kept his eyes close on the giant frog. There was soon a roar in the sky as he looked up and saw an Airdramon moving towards the falls. "There are two of them now?" TonosamaGekomon got up and started to shout at the Airdramon as the troops looked on.  
"What are they doing?" A Canadian captain asked.  
"It looks like they're talking, but… can they communicate?" He soon dropped the binoculars as he saw a girl on the back of Airdramon.  
"What is it?"  
"I don't know… maybe it was my imagination… I saw a child riding on that monster." TonosamaGekomon soon got up and started to walk away with Airdramon away from the falls.  
"And now they're leaving… where are they going?"  
"Sir, we have a problem!" A US corporal ran up. "It seems the monsters in the other locations are heading towards New York City."  
"What?! Damn it… all of New York will be in a panic!"

 _Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. December 25th, 2002. 0204 Hours. (EST); 1604 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"{Approaching New York!}" The pilot shouted as we could see the skyscrapers of New York like the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building. I often find it amazing how similar Tokyo and New York can be sometimes. Made due with a smaller location for a city and built upwards instead of out.  
"{Dad, it just occurred to me, if we land at La Guardia or JFK, we'll never get into the city with all the traffic.}" Michael told his father.  
"{Yes, sir, we're supposed to meet the other Chosen Children at Central Park where we're going to send the Digimon back to the Digital World.}" added Mimi.  
"{I understand… Well, I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. Bill! Think you can land us on 5th Avenue by the East Meadow?"} Michael's father requested. The pilot looked at him for a moment before nodding.  
"{Should be feasible…but you might want to buckle up.}" We all strapped in.  
"We gonna be okay?" V-mon asked.  
"Think so." Palmon answered him.  
"Still, best to do what old Bill says!" Betamon informs as we head down for the wide street.

After touching down, we all got out and sat on some of the benches of Central Park as we waited for the other Chosen Children to arrive. We all looked on Mimi's laptop and saw several dots beginning to converge on Central Park which meant the other kids were coming. I quickly looked over to see Michael's dad enjoying some of the snacks we brought along with the pilot.  
"So, all we got to do is sit here and wait for the other Chosen Children of America and Canada to bring the wild Digimon here?" I asked for a reminder.  
"{By the way, was it your idea to gather everyone here, Mimi?}" Michael wondered.  
"{Sorry, but it wasn't mine.}"  
"{That was actually mine.}" A man in a familiar robe walked up. He then pulled down the hood to reveal it was Gennai!  
"Gennai-san!?" I exclaimed as I pointed at him.

"No, my name is Benjamin." He replied back in Japanese as he walked up to us.  
"You could say that I'm one of Gennai's partners."  
"But you look exactly the same!" V-mon shouted.  
"Well… that's because we were originally one and the same."  
"What does that mean?" V-mon scratched his head. This whole thing is running the risk of melting my brain.  
"I'll explain when things settle down or it will get late."  
"By the way, what are the other American and Canadian Chosen Children like?" I looked to Michael. "Are they Chosen from 2001, like you?"  
"{Some are from 2001 and some aren't. I've met some but not others.}"  
"I see… I wanna meet them soon!" I got excited.  
"Yeah!" V-mon nodded.  
"They're all close, so you'll meet them in a bit." Mimi told me.  
"I can't wait!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Across New York, the Chosen Children of North America were all gathering towards Central Park, their partners helping herd the wayward Digimon. Near the RCA building in Rockefeller Center, a boy with a FlareLizamon was leading several RedVegimon and a Jyureimon towards the park.  
"{We're almost to Central Park.}" A young African American boy named Sam Walker said in English. They all stopped when the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lit up next to them as they walked by. While most of the group was enamored by the display, Jyureimon saw it as a threat and charged forward and attacked it. "{No! That's not an enemy, it's just a Christmas tree!}"  
"Stop!" FlareLizamon jumped right after the tree Digimon but was quickly knocked into a building.  
"{This is bad…}" Sam worried. "{I better ask for help!}"

"Pika Sparking!" A voice cried out before this purple bunny wearing a martial arts outfit and red gloves with metal switchblade claws on it crashed into Jyureimon. This Digimon was known as Turuiemon.  
"Gatling Arm!" From on top of a nearby building, Gummymon, or rather Galgomon, jumped down and opened fire, forcing Jyureimon to fall back away from the tree. Sam turned his head and found Wallace running up to him.  
"{Chocomon! Gummymon! Keep him distracted!}" He then turned to Sam. "{Are you alright?}"  
"{Yeah, I am…}" They both looked back to the fighting and saw that the three Chosen Digimon were quickly getting thrown back.  
"Wallace! He's stronger than all of us!" Turuiemon informed.  
"That's because we're only Adult-Level Digimon and he's a Perfect-Level!" Galgomon shouted.  
"{I was about to call for help!}" Sam told Wallace.  
"{Then do it! Hurry!}" Wallace ordered.

 _P.O.V. – Mimi Tachikawa_

We all quietly sat in the park and ate some snacks as we were waiting for the others to arrive. Daisuke was busy telling Michael some tales about the adventures he had been through, with Benjamin acting as translator for the two of them, and Michael's dad and the pilot were discussing on how to get the plane off the road and back to Miami once we were finished. I soon got a beep on my D-Terminal and pulled it out.  
"Emergency, guys!" I shouted as I read the message.  
"What!?" Daisuke shot up.  
"It's from someone named Sam Walker of Atlanta. He says Jyureimon is causing trouble at Rockefeller Center!"  
"What? We have to stop him." determined Daisuke. He and V-mon soon started to run.  
"{Wait, Daisuke!}" Michael stopped him.  
"What?"  
"{Do you know where that is?}"  
"Where?" He suddenly looked very embarrassed. "I have no idea."  
"Really, Daisuke…" Palmon exasperated. I had to giggle at that.

"Let's all go help." I suggested.  
"{Agreed!}" Michael gave a thumbs up.  
"Okay, I'll stay here and keep anyone away from here when you all get back." Benjamin informed.  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!"  
"Palmon, evolve! TOGEMON!" "Togemon, super-evolve! LILIMON!" Oh, how nice it was to see Lilimon once again!  
"Betamon, evolve! SEADRAMON!" Okay, this time I wasn't frightened by him considering I knew he was able to evolve into that. Daisuke climbed onto XV-mon's shoulder while Michael and I rode on Seadramon's back.  
"Okay, let's go!" Daisuke said as we all headed for Rockefeller Center.

By the time we got nearby, we could see a FlareLizamon fighting Jyureimon at the top of the RCA building.  
"Stop it!" He shouted before getting knocked down once again. Lilimon flew as fast as she could before she was soon spinning around the tree Digimon's neck.  
"Flower Wreath!" Last time I saw her do this, it pacified DarkTyranomon. But that was because he had a virus… and my worries were correct when he simply shattered the wreath.  
"Why?" Lilimon questioned as she flew back down to us.  
"It's because he's not affected by a virus." I told her. We turned the corner and found some Digimon on the ground with two boys, one of whom must have been Sam while the other one was Wallace!  
"Hey, Daisuke! Mimi!" He waved at us as we got up to the pair.  
"Hey, how are you doing, Michael?" Daisuke soon noticed the other rabbit Digimon next to him that wasn't Gummymon. That could only mean one thing. "Is that…?"  
"Yeah, but I'll tell you later! Right now we got to calm down Jyureimon!"

"{What happened to him?}" Michael asked about Jyureimon.  
"{The Christmas tree lit up and he took it as a threat and has gone into a rage!}" Sam told us.  
"If that's the case… Okay, XV-mon! Go and cool Jyureimon off!" ordered Daisuke.  
"Cool him off?" XV-mon question before he looked around. "Ah, got it. Leave it to me!" He took to the skies.  
"Chocomon, Gummymon, help him out!" Wallace added. Both bunnies nodded and started hopping up the sides of the skyscrapers. The two of them got there first and Jyureimon looked back and forth between the two about which one he was going to fight… only for XV-mon to sneak up behind him while he was distracted… and kicked him off the roof! Jyureimon fell all the way down until he landed head first into the frozen Rockefeller fountain!  
"Ooo…" We all groaned.  
"Is that enough?" XV-mon asked Daisuke.  
"When I said 'cool him off', that's not what I meant…"

"Cherry Bomb!" He launched a large array of explosive cherries that blew back all our Digimon before grabbing them all in his vines!  
"XV-mon!" "Lilimon!" "Chocomon! Gummymon!" "Seadramon!" "FlareLizamon!" The five of us cried for our Digimon. Things didn't look good until a Kentarumon showed up and fired his cannon which cut the vines. We turned to see a young Hispanic looking girl with the centaur Digimon.  
"{I'm Maria Espinosa. Santa Fe, New Mexico. I've come to help!}"  
"Thanks!" Daisuke waved at her. We then turned around to see a Tortamon launch his attack at Jyureimon. A boy of Native American decent crawled up from behind his head.  
"{I'm Lou Blackwolf. St. Paul, Minnesota. Are you alright?}"  
"{Yeah! Thank you!}" I praised. Jyureimon got ready to attack again but now a Yukidarumon showed up and punched him in the face, freezing him solid. A blond haired boy with glasses ran up to us.  
"{I'm Steve Clark. Toronto, Canada. Nice to meet you.}" He had a pretty thick Canadian accent.  
"{Likewise!}" Michael greeted him.

All the Digimon soon surrounded Jyureimon, but it was clear he was anything but a push over.  
"Okay. Attack together!" Daisuke yelled.  
"Flame Hit!" "Ice Arrow!" "Flower Cannon!" "X Laser!" "Gatling Arm!" "Ninja Fist!" "Shell Phalanx!" "Zettai Reido Punch!" "Hunting Cannon!" All the attacks hit and Jyureimon fell over as he went unconscious from the array of attacks.  
"Way to go!" cheered Daisuke.

We all said our respective greeting as we all led our vast army of Digimon back to Central Park in order to send them all home. Another Chosen Child named Rose Lawson from Tacoma, Washington and her partner Airdramon met up with us after the fight with even more Digimon then we already had with us before. The unconscious Jyureimon was being carried by Tortamon and Phil though it was fun just to lay in his braches.  
"So, Wallace… about Chocomon there… care to explain now?" Daisuke inquired as he and Wallace were riding on XV-mon's shoulders.  
"Just the day after we parted ways, I was on my way back upstate to my home when we Chocomon's egg floating down a creek. I was so happy!" He explained.  
"Does he know…?"  
"Yeah, he does. I tried to tell him it was a long sleep but…"  
"Can't really trick me when I know it all." Chocomon turned to look at them. "I'm sorry about everything that happened though. I don't fully know what happened…"  
"It's all in the past. The important thing is that your back now." I told him.  
"Yeah, it really is." Gummymon gave him a pat on the back… though he kinda forgot his hands were cannons so Chocomon winced in a bit of pain.

"No lost Digimon…" Lilimon flew back down to me and sat behind me. That's great to hear. We soon got back to Central Park and got everything set up.  
"Okay, shall we begin?" I asked.  
"Daisuke, would you like to do the honors?" Benjamin offered and I nodded with him. Daisuke nodded back.  
"You got it! Leave it to me!" He held up his D-3 to my laptop. "Digital Gate, open!" The gate soon showed it was open.  
"Yes! The gate opened!" Lou gave out a sigh of relief. The massed group of Digimon were all soon engulfed by the light and sent back including many of the partner Digimon… but their humans had said their temporary goodbyes. A few moments later, all the Digimon were sent back. The only ones who stayed were Gummymon, Chocomon, who was now a small brown bunny and looked like a twin to Gummymon, Betamon, Palmon, and V-mon.

"{Daisuke, Mimi, thanks for coming all the way here!}" "{We couldn't have done it without you.}" "Indeed. Good job, you two." Some of the other kids and Benjamin praised.  
"Nah…" Uh, oh. I think Daisuke's ego is getting stroked.  
"Careful, Daisuke-kun. Don't get a big head!" I patted his shoulder which quickly brought him back down to Earth.  
"Seriously, it was certainly great fighting with you guys again… under less stressful circumstances though…" Wallace told us.  
"More than happy to help, Wallace." I told him.  
"{Same goes for me too; always a pleasure.}" Michael held out his hand and shook it with Daisuke.

"Mimi-chan!?" An all too familiar voice said from a few yards away. I turned and found myself staring at my mom's sister!  
"Hinata-obasan?!" I exclaimed as she ran up to us and hugged me.  
"Mimi-chan… when did you get in town? And what are you actually doing here tonight?" She looked at the other kids. "{Was I seeing things… or were all those monsters here a second ago? What happened?}" She asked in English before let go of me and looked over to Daisuke. "{Hey, you. Can you explain?}"  
"E-explain, well…" Daisuke muttered after Wallace whispered to him about what she said. He turned around and looked at everyone else who also had nervous looks and chuckled.  
"Come on." She put her hands on his shoulder.  
 _"_ _I'll have to play dumb then."_ Daisuke thought before turning around with a big smile on his face. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas, Hinata-san!" He laughed with a dumb look on his face. Nice save, Daisuke… Sorry for putting you on the spot with my aunt, I'll try to make it up to you as soon as I can.

 _Nathan Road, Hong Kong, Commonwealth of Nations. December 25th, 2002. 1204 Hours. (HKT); 1304 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

It was almost three in the morning in New York, five in the afternoon in Japan, when Daisuke and Mimi averted the Digimon crisis in America and Canada. Meanwhile slightly earlier in the day after being dropped off by Imperialdramon, Hikari and Koushiro were dealing with their own problems as they tried to rally the Asian Chosen Children in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong. One of the crown jewels of the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1982, British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher began talks with Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping in order to extend the lease of Hong Kong to the British. The Chinese counter, wishing for the return of all their territory still under foreign administration. Negotiations go nowhere for a year until the Premier bluntly states that he 'could take the whole lot in an afternoon'. Embolden by her victory with the Falklands War, Thatcher takes the gauntlet and reinforces the Hong Kong garrison. China retaliated by moving troops to the border to try to force her to reconsider. Half a year passes and Thatcher doesn't yield an inch, and even convinces several Commonwealth States to stand with Britain. On April 19th, 1984, China decides to recover by force and declares war on Britain.

The war went by several names: the Sino-British war, the Hong Kong War, the Nine-Days War. In the end, it was a total rout. The Commonwealth forces suffered over three thousand casualties, but it was at a seven to one ratio as the Chinese took over twenty-one thousand causalities, not including those that were captured. The Chinese divisions that were sent in to capture the territory were devastated and any major reinforcements were too far out. The conflict ended within nine days as the Royal Navy soon arrived in the area, the United States and the Soviet Union, whom were at odds with China since 1979, also began put pressure on the Chinese to stop the conflict. With nothing gained, the Chinese withdrew and sued for peace where Britain was able to keep Hong Kong, until a referendum in 1997 where Hong Kong declared independence from Britain and became a Commonwealth member.

On Christmas Day of 2002, chaos was running rampant in the city as the Digimon incursion continued. At Nathan Road, a Mojyamon had stabbed the pavement with his sharp icicle and caused a mass panic of people running the other way. The only one who wasn't running was an old mustached man who stood his ground. Mojyamon ran up to him before he pulled out a yellow paper with Chinese lettering on it.  
"{Evil spirit, begone!}" The paper landed on Mojyamon's nose, but did nothing. Instead he just blew it away with his nose. "{How dare you…}" The old man took a few steps back.  
"{Watch out, Grandfather!}" A tall boy in a white tank top and red pants named Poi Jiang picked him up and got him out of the way from being skewered by Mojyamon's icicle. Jiang's brothers soon arrived as well. The middle brother in blue pants was Han while the shortest and youngest brother was in yellow pants and named Zhao.  
"{Leave this to us!}" Zhao told their Grandfather.  
"{Leave it to you? What do you plan to do, grandchildren?}"  
"Shakomon!" The three brothers turned around to their Digimon which were oyster-like creatures.  
"Shakomon, evolve! OCTOMON!" The three of them evolved into octopus Digimon with a crown on their heads, sword in one tentacle and a ink gun in the other. "Ocean Ink Gun!" All three of them fired and blinded Mojyamon with the ink before he fell over.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

When we heard the nearby panic, we quickly had our Digimon evolve to their Perfect-Levels to get there fast. Koushiro was riding on AtlurKabuterimon's horn while Angewomon had me in her arms. We soon saw the commotion and saw a Mojyamon on the ground with three octopus Digimon right near him with three boys. Those must be some of the Asian Chosen Children. The boy in blue pants shouted and those octopus Digimon looked ready to finish him off.  
"No! Don't hurt that Digimon anymore!" I cried as we landed.  
"{Huh?}" The boys looked at each other. "{Japanese?}" The tall one looked to us. "{Uh, I can't understand you!}" He told me in English.  
"{Wait, you guys know English?}" They all nodded. "{Oh, thank goodness…}" I breathed a sigh of relief before giving Koushiro a thumbs up.  
"That's nice to know you can talk to them. I don't know that much English." He told me.  
"It's okay, Koushiro-san, I can communicate with them for you."

"{Surprised to know you speak English.}" The smallest boy said to me.  
"{I could say the same to you boys.}"  
"{Hey, this is Hong Kong, we're a Commonwealth nation after all!}" The middle one laughed.  
"{Anyways, what I was trying to say before; don't hurt that Digimon anymore. He's just lost and doesn't mean anything he does.}" I explained.  
"{Alright, but forgive us for going a bit rough on him. After all, he nearly skewered our grandfather.}" The tall boy informed. Soon, one of Gennai's compatriots, Jackie, arrived and walked over to the boys. I was a bit surprised to see him look exactly like Gennai but Koushiro explained things to me. I'm a smart girl but I won't try to understand some of the things that Koushiro knows.  
"{She's right. The Digimon are not enemies so please don't try to hurt them.}" He told them. "{They're lost and confused so we need to send them back home. If we return them to the Digital World, it will be fine.}"

"{Okay, then… but… could we at least know who you guys are?}" The short boy asked.  
"I'm Izumi Koushiro, I come from Japan." Koushiro introduced himself as we got off our Digimon and walked up to the boys with Jackie translating for him. "This is Yagami Hikari-kun." He motioned to me.  
"Ni hao!" I bowed and gave a formal greeting in Cantonese. It was actually the few Cantonese I knew.  
"And this is a friend of Gennai-san's, Jackie-san." Koushiro finished his introductions while Jackie gave out a little martial arts move. "You're Hong Kong's Chosen Children, right?" He asked as the old man with the boys walked over and looked at Angewomon and AtlurKabuterimon.  
"{I'm Jiang.}"  
"{I'm Han.}"  
"{And I'm Zhao.}"  
"{We're the three Poi brothers.}"

"{We're gathering the Digimon that got lost in the Real World at Kowloon Park to send them back to the Digital World. Will you help us?}" Jackie asked. The three brothers gathered up and whispered to each other. The soon broke a moment later.  
"{Okay. It'll be our pleasure to help.}" Jiang said.  
"Thank you!" Koushiro nodded.  
"Xie xie!" I thanked which caused all the brothers to blush and have hearts in their eyes. Oh, boy, even more admirers.

 _Kowloon Park, Hong Kong, Commonwealth of Nations. December 25th, 2002. 1437 Hours. (HKT); 1537 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Koushiro Izumi_

We all soon ended up in Kowloon Park where we were waiting for all the remaining Asian Chosen Children to arrive with all the wayward Digimon. I was looking at my D-Terminal as multiple kids were messaging me that they were on their way.  
"It seems they're heading this way from all over Asia." I told Hikari.  
"Did you hear that, Jackie-san?" We looked over to him and saw him with practicing some martial arts moves with the Poi brother's grandfather.  
"Yes!" He informed.  
"{Looks like it'll be over by dinner.}" believed Jiang.  
"{Which means…}" Zhao sounded on the verge of excitement.  
"{We can have dinner with Hikari-chan after this!}" Han claimed. I shook my head and smiled. Hikari just somehow has that way with boys.

My thoughts were interrupted when my D-Terminal beeped and I soon received a messaged that was a cry for help.  
"What? Who is it?" Hikari looked concerned.  
"It's from someone named Mina in India… I'll explain later. Let's hurry to the Chinese border!" I turned to one of the Poi brothers. "Would one of you come along with us?"  
"{Alright, I will!}" Jiang stepped forward. We soon got back on AtlurKabuterimon and Angewomon and few to the border. The issue was that Mina's group was finding their path blockaded by an entire battalions worth of Chinese troops. If they tried to move forward, they'd find themselves fired upon and things could only get worse from there.

We landed where Mina and her partner Meramon waited for us along with all the Digimon following her.  
"{Hello.}" She greeted in English as we messaged her that we didn't speak her native tongue.  
"{That must be it.}" Hikari looked ahead at the mechanized battalion that had their guns positioned right for us.  
"If needed, AtlurKabuterimon and I can act as decoys." Angewomon offered.  
"Right. Meanwhile, everyone else would head to Hong Kong." added AtlurKabuterimon.  
"W-wait a second. It's not that simple." I was quick to stop them. "There could be a misunderstanding and this could turn into an international problem."  
"{Beijing does not like to be made to look weak. We're at a standstill here.}" explained Jiang.  
"They probably won't believe what we tell them…"  
"But…" Hikari spoke up.  
"Us Digimon could talk to them instead of Hikari and the others, but I can't speak Chinese." Angewomon said.  
"Me neither…" sighed AtlurKabuterimon. Hikari's eyes suddenly widened a second later.  
"That's it! I've got an idea!"

The idea was to use Octomon as a translator. He slid forward to the ravine wall before using his ink gun attack and began to spell out 'Ni hao'. We clearly must have got the troops attention as we all soon started to wave at them. A few moments later, the troops started to run around until they used their bodies to spell out 'Ni hao' as well!  
"They got it!" Hikari cheered.  
"Okay, please tell them our objective like that." I turned to Jiang.  
"{Gotcha!}" After about ten minutes of him talking with the Chinese commander, we were soon allowed across the border.

We soon got back to Kowloon and met up with some other Chosen Children not to long after that. I then got my laptop ready for the gate to be open and the Digimon to be sent back home.  
"Let us begin, then." I finished opening the gate program. "Hikari-kun?" She held up her D-3.  
"Digital Gate, open!" The wind picked up as the light got brighter before a few moments later, all the Digimon were sent back to the Digital World. I then took a deep sigh of relief. "{Thank you, everyone!}"  
"{Likewise. You really saved us.}" Jiang shook her hand.  
"{Thank you very much!}" Mina bowed.  
"{No fair, bro! I wanna shake hands with Hikari too!}" Zhao shouted and shoved him out of the way to shake her hand.  
"{Me too, me too!}" Han pushed his brothers out of the way as well. I could only laugh at the brothers fight.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

However, while the crisis were being averted across the world, Japan was experiencing a strange calm considering what was happening earlier. At a small park in Tokyo, a small brown haired boy named Youshizawa Takashi was sitting by himself on a swing set while some other kids ran by and played some soccer. A moment later, Takashi turned and saw Mummymon sit on the opposite swing.  
"You're all alone too, mister?"

Mummymon stopped swing and slowly turned to look at the boy…

* * *

Takashi! STRANGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER! F-ing run! This is not going to end well, and we know it.

By the way, the whole Hong Kong war is one of the campaign scenarios 'Pearl of the Orient' for the RTS game Wargame: Red Dragon.

Anyways, see you in Paris and Australia for the next one.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	47. Rebel Cause! Coral and Versailles!

New chapter... and the Episode IX trailer dropped today... my reaction? _Makes fanboyish squeeing noises._ Calling it, Palpatine is a Sith Spirit like Bane in that episode of Clone Wars. What I'm truly hoping for is Hayden to come back as Anakin and have a conversation with Rey, or ever better, Luke's ghost.

Anyways, shoutout to the reviews left by **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** and **GreenD109** , you guys are my core fanbase and I love you guys so much. Oh, and **Matsky** , I don't really know how to answer that... I'm just gonna say yes, Hong Kong in this reality has a Governor-General like some of the other Commonwealth's, though I'm guessing this is an elected position here.

With that out of the way, let's continue the world tour. Time to pay a visit to the land of spiders the size of SUVs that no one bats an eye to and the cheese-eating surrender monkeys... dang it, Willie!

* * *

 **Chapter 46: Rebel Cause! Coral and Versailles!**

 _Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. December 25th, 2002. 1401 Hours. (AEST); 1301 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

Certainly had quite the fast trip on our way to the city of Gold Coast in Australia. Imperialdramon dropped us off in Sydney to quickly deal with a Dark Tower that was not too far away from the infamous Sydney Opera House. The tower wasn't much of a challenge as Ikkakumon and Digmon took care of it fairly quickly. From there, we needed to head north to Gold Coast where we were to meet up with the Chosen Children all throughout the South Pacific. The issue was that we were several hundred miles away from our destination. However, we got some luck as when we destroyed the tower, a family friend of one of the Australian Chosen Children met with us and told us to come with him on a jet that took us to the city. It didn't take long before we were back on the beach once more, this time in Gold Coast, removing the Dark Tower that was a blight on the beach.

"Digmon." I said as Armadimon and Gomamon evolved again and were prepared to take out this tower. It was kind of odd though; these towers apparently weren't active like the one back in Odaiba. I don't know what the deal was with that… maybe Archnemon was just mostly using them as a gateway for Digimon to come through. Perhaps when they first arrived, they performed the evolutionary jamming that we had to deal with all the time when we were fighting Osamu. Still, even when inactive, there was no telling what those things could truly do if they stick around, considering they were designed to help destroy the Digital World.  
"Got it." Digmon responded.  
"Ikkakumon, destroy the Dark Tower." ordered Jou.  
"Right!" He shouted. The two of them took a few steps up towards the Dark Tower as they got ready to destroy it. "Harpoon Vulcan!" Ikkakumon's missile flew out and blew the top part of the tower off and caused it to disintegrate.  
"Leave the rest to me!" Digmon now charged forward and ran his drills into the tower, causing it to crack.

"It's Christmas, but it sure is hot in Australia!" Jou complained as he pulled out a small handkerchief and used it on some of the sweat that was building on his forehead.  
"Unlike in Japan, it's summer in the southern hemisphere now." I informed him.  
"That's true. Okay, let's take it down by pulling with a rope."  
"Okay." I nodded. We turned back and looked at many of the beach goers going along with their fun like nothing at all was wrong. Wow, this stuff wasn't phasing them at all.  
"Still…" Jou muttered.  
"It sure is peaceful." I observed.  
"What can we do?" Ikkakumon asked. "The Australians don't know the Earth is in danger." We keep watching the surfers catching some pretty good waves out on the ocean.  
"But doesn't this suddenly appearing making the wonder?" Digmon questioned as we finished up tying some ropes and putting them around the tower and our Digimon.  
"Complaining about the Australian people won't help." I told him.

Jou and I soon got a rope ready and were about to pull it to try to topple the weakened down over.  
"Iori-kun, let's hurry and take the Dark Tower down."  
"Yes, Jou-san." I pick up the rope with him.  
"Heave-ho!" We both shout as we start to pull with Digmon and Ikkakumon.  
"Heave-ho!" They responded back to us.  
"Heave-ho!" We shouted once more.  
"Heave-ho!" They strained as we all kept pulling it.  
"Let me help you." A voice called out. "We can't have a good Christmas as long as the Dark Tower is here." We turned to look over and saw someone dressed as Santa in a red and white striped bathing suit.  
"Santa Claus in a swimsuit?" Jou and I loudly questioned at the same time. He walked over to us and grabbed the rope that Jou and I were holding.  
"Okay, let's do this!"  
"Heave-ho!" The three of us cried as we tugged once more. We pulled hard and the tower started to come down. Digmon fell on his back on the last tug and devolved back to Armadimon as the infernal creation came crashing into the sand.

"We did it!" "Alright, dagyaa!" Our Digimon cheered as the tower began to disintegrate.  
"Merry Christmas!" Santa cheered along with us.  
"Merry Christmas!" We said back to him.  
"But we can't celebrate yet. The Pacific Chosen Children are leading the Digimon to the remaining Dark Tower in the Great Barrier Reef." He told us… which greatly confused us on how he knew all this. It all made sense when he took off the mask he was wearing to reveal himself to be Gennai!  
"Gennai-san!" We both exclaim.  
"I'm a friend of Gennai's, Yukari." Our attention was soon turned when we heard screaming nearby.  
"{Help! Somebody help!}" We looked out on the water and saw someone sailing on a wind board.  
"It's a boy!" I pointed out to him.  
"Is a shark after him?" Armadimon wondered.

"He's with a Digimon!" Ikkakumon shouted. Upon looking closer, we could see that he had a gray crab Digimon riding on the front of the board.  
"He's probably a Chosen like you." Yukari said. We looked at the curly brown haired, blue eyed boy as he looked incredibly terrified at the moment while trying to sail back to shore. Behind him, a large white fin came out of the water, turns out it was the head of a large squid like Digimon.  
"He's being chased by a Gesomon!" After that, we could see Shellmon coming up out of the water behind Gesomon and behind those two was Ebidramon. That boy was being chased by three strong ocean Digimon!  
"Gesomon?" "Shellmon?" "Ebidramon?" Yukari, Jou and myself observed.  
"They sound like a seafood mix." Yukari suggested. That turned out to give Jou an idea.  
"Okay, we'll go with that!" He declared.  
"'Go with that'?" I asked.

Well, I might not have figured it out, but Ikkakumon and Armadimon seemed to.  
"I see! Seafood mix attack, huh?" Ikkakumon nodded. The boy soon hit a hard wave and caused his wind board to jump out of the water. He and the crab hung on tight as they did a full front flip before landing back in the water and safely sliding to shore. The three Digimon approached the shore but Ikkakumon ran up to them with Armadimon on his back. "Hold it! We're the ones who'll protect…"  
"…the Australian Chosen, dagyaa!" Armadimon finished his sentence. The boy and his Digimon partner ran up to us. He was wearing some water shoes, a t-shirt and some legless swim trunks.  
"{Hi. I'm Hugh Kelly. My mates call me Dingo. I'm one of the Digidestined of Australia.}" He introduced himself.  
"He says his nickname is Dingo." Jou translated. "Calls himself a Digidestined, guess that's what the Chosen Children call themselves here."  
"Hmm… kinda catchy." I admitted. We then looked to his Digimon partner.  
"{This here is Ganimon.}"

"It's not the time for introductions!" Yukari reminded us of the task at hand.  
"Right. Ikkakumon, tell them!" Jou called over to him.  
"Yeah! Gesomon, Shellmon, Ebidramon! We'll make you into Digimon seafood mix pizza!"  
"Digimon…" "Seafood…" "Mix…" "Pizza?" The three of them said. They went into thought about that before suddenly panicking and diving under the water. Oh, now I get it.  
"Armadimon, tell them." I smirked.  
"We'll make you all into Digimon seafood mix pilaf, dagyaa!"  
"Digimon…" "Seafood…" "Mix…" "Pilaf?" Once again they got scared and dived into the waves again.  
"{I see, so that's their weakness!}" Now, Dingo followed along. "{Ganimon, you tell them!}"  
"We'll make you into Digimon seafood mix curry!" The little crab crawled over to the water's edge.  
"Digimon seafood mix curry!?" The three Digimon soon turned tail and ran away from us.  
"Wait, Digimon seafood mix!" Ikkakumon, Armadimon and Ganimon followed after them.  
"Pizza!" "Pilaf!" "Curry!" We all got into a ridge-inflatable boat with a strong motor and were soon following the three scared Digimon and our own.  
"Good, they're heading towards the Great Barrier Reef. We'll follow them!" Yukari told us as he hit the gas.

 _P.O.V. – Jou Kido_

We followed the Digimon along for what felt like a good while before we could see a small island with a Dark Tower on it up ahead.  
"This is the Great Barrier Reef." Yukari explained.  
"That's…" Iori pointed ahead to the Dark Tower.  
"Yeah, a Dark Tower…" I calmly stated.  
"We'll take care of the Digimon seafood mix later." informed Yukari. "Let's all destroy the Dark Tower!"  
"Yeah!" The three of us shouted.  
"Come back, Ikkakumon! Come back!" I called out to him. Ikkakumon turned around leaving the three Digimon to ink the ocean in fear as they sank into the waves.  
"We're safe…" They sighed.

As we got closer to the island, we were soon welcomed by a large geyser of sand before an Anomalocarimon came out of the sand. We reached the shore and Ganimon jumped forward in a crustacean on crustacean fight. However, he was quickly knocked away by the larger Digimon and jumped out of the way before he was impaled by one of the sea scorpion's large claws.  
"Anomalocarimon!" He roared in a bit of a high pitch and familiar voice… wait… could this be the same one that served MetalSeadramon all those years ago? Either way, he's strong.  
"That's a Perfect-Level one." I explained to Iori and Dingo. "Ikkakumon, super-evolve!"  
"Ikkakumon, super-evolve! ZUDOMON!" Zudomon stomped forward and the two of them were locked up in a hard duel with neither trying to give ground. Sadly, Zudomon lost the edge and was surprisingly tossed away, crashing into the shallows.  
"Stinger Surprise!" His attack was deflected by Zudomon's hammer but the sea scorpion charged right into him and knocked him deeper into the water where he destroyed a huge reef of coral.

"{The coral reefs will be destroyed!}" Dingo exclaimed in shock. Anomalocarimon sat in the waters and just waited for his next opponent to come.  
"At this rate, the Great Barrier Reef will be damaged…" Yukari feared.  
"Zudomon! Dive into the sea!" I ordered. Zudomon nodded and ambushed the scorpion by grabbing him by the tail and dragging him under the waves.  
"If it's underwater, it's our turn!" Iori declared.  
"Gotcha! Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Whirling Sincerity, SABMARIMON!"  
"{Ganimon, don't fall behind!}" ordered Dingo.  
"Ganimon, evolve! COELAMON!" Coelamon was a large prehistoric looking fish, with the teeth that looked like they could chew through metal. Iori climbed into Sabmarimon and dived into the waves while Coelamon followed in after everyone.  
"Sabmarimon, keep Anomalocarimon away from the coral reefs." I heard Iori's voice over my D-3 as I looked into the clear waters and was able to see the entire fight.

I could be able to make out Zudomon and Anomalocarimon fighting in a dead lock once again. Zudomon had just not used that form for so long and was having some troubles readjusting, which gave Anomalocarimon a good advantage at the moment. He showed it when he knocked down Zudomon once again. He then had to roll over to avoid being impaled by that stinger. Coelamon soon swam by and the sea scorpion turned his attention towards him and chased right after him.  
"Aqua Vulcan!" Sabmarimon's attack struck him in the face as he was distracted with the ancient fish.  
"Anomalocarimon!" He chased after the both of him in quite the rage.  
"I'll act as a bait and set him up for you!" advised Coelamon.  
"Countin' on you, dagyaa!" The two of them split off and the scorpion took the bait and followed right after Coelamon. However, the plan never expected Zudomon coming from above!  
"Hammer Spark!" He slammed his hammer down on Anomalocarimon's head and sent him deeper into the water.  
"Oxygen Homing!" Anomalocarimon took the brunt of the attack and was knocked unconscious.

"Did we… finish him off?" Coelamon asked as they swam over to him. "Don't tell me…"  
"Don't worry, dagyaa." assured Sabmarimon.  
"He's just unconscious." Iori said as Anomalocarimon floated back up to the surface.  
"{Now we just have to destroy the Dark Tower!}" Dingo turned our attention back to the main objective at hand.  
"Variable Darts!" Coelamon's nails glowed yellow before shooting out in multiple projectiles. They flew out to the tower and it was completely disintegrated upon impact. We all clapped in approval for his good work.  
"Help!" We turned around to see Gesomon, Shellmon and Ebidramon now running away from a Whamon and a large boat with multiple Digimon and humans on both.  
"{The other Digidestined from all over the Pacific have brought the Digimon here. Indonesians, Polynesians, the Kiwis, my fellow Aussies; we got 'em all!}" Dingo exclaimed.

"Well, then… we've still got one last thing do. Let's send the Digimon back to the Digital World." I said as I patted him on the back. Dingo pulled out a laptop he had in his backpack and soon started to get it ready while Yukari talked to the other Chosen Children while Iori hopped out of Sabmarimon and ran over to Dingo to get ready open the gate. Dingo moved out of the way with everything ready.  
"Digital Gate, open!" The gate lit up and soon the Digimon were well on their way back to the Digital World. Our job down under would be complete… and in no small part to the help of Dingo.

 _Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France. December 25th, 2002. 0406 Hours. (CEST); 1206 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

Ah, Paris on Christmas… so many lights and decorations. Of course, it isn't called the 'City of Lights' for nothing. We stood by the Arc de Triomphe where Imperialdramon dropped us off and looked at the Eiffel Tower as we waited for Grandpa to come pick us up. Of course, the only thing that one could see was wrong was how quiet the city was, even in the middle of the night on Christmas. Clearly the Digimon were probably keeping everyone indoors.  
"Christmas in Paris…" I muttered as I kept my hands in my pockets. "It's much colder than Tokyo, isn't it, Taichi-san?"  
"Yeah… been a while since I've been here…er, well, it was in Medal of Honor: Underground that I played with Ross." He chuckled to himself. "But anyways, I have to ask, but is he really coming? That Michel, your French grandfather who lives here."  
"Look, he told me to wait at the Arc de Triomphe, so I think he'll come."  
"'I think' isn't good enough! We don't really know anything about Paris, after all."  
"I emphasized it was a worldwide crisis, so don't worry."

"Okay then… but tell me this… how is you're a quarter French on your mother's side then?" Taichi and the others were actually fairly surprised when I admitted the fact that I had some French blood.  
"Well, my grandfather was assigned to the French Embassy in Tokyo when he was a young man after the war, where he met my grandmother, who actually had a great interest in French culture. He became so enamored with her… well, you catch my drift."  
"Okay, so that's how your mother's parents met, but Takaishi… why isn't your surname something more… French?" I chuckled.  
"I said my grandfather was so enamored with my grandmother, that he actually took her family surname rather than for her to take his, so that's why Mom and I went back to Takaishi after the divorce. Technically, my surname should actually LaRoche."  
"Well, that honestly explains a few things… like the blonde hair and blue eyes." I rubbed the back of my head. "Hey, you know any French?"  
"{Of course.} I'm fairly fluent in it; Mom taught me lessons at home. Yamato would've too, but you know…" Taichi nodded and looked fairly impressed.

Patamon soon made a small gasp as he interrupted our conversation. We soon heard a sound getting closer and closer as it was coming down the Champs-Élysées.  
"It's a motorbike engine." Agumon listened before we saw a bright lone light coming down the infamous road. "A sidecar!" As soon as it got closer, I recognized who it was.  
"Takeru!" Grandpa laughed as he pulled up. He was a fairly older gentleman with a somewhat thick goatee.  
"Grandpa!" I ran up to him as he parked the bike and got up, before I gave him a hug. He laughed once more.  
"Joyeux Noel." He said as he removed his driving goggles.  
"Come again?" Taichi asked.  
"It means 'Merry Christmas' in French." I explained to him which gave him a 'Oh, duh' look on his face. "Anyways, Grandpa… now's not the time for celebrating Christmas." I got us back on the matter at hand.  
"We have to find the Digimon quickly or it'll be terrible." Taichi explained.  
"I know. Your mother explained much of it to me over the years. The world is in danger once again, am I right?" Grandpa put back on his goggles. "Hop in, I'll get you boys around the city. Traffic is terrific tonight with everyone either afraid to come out or just asleep."

I got behind Grandpa and wrapped my arms around him while Taichi, Patamon, and Agumon got in the side car.  
"Hey, what's Grandma doing?" I asked as we drove down the road to Versailles where apparently there was some Digimon sightings in the area according to the local French news.  
"She drank too much wine at the Christmas Eve party and fell asleep, so I didn't wake her up." I gave a light laugh.  
"You're nice, Grandpa."  
"If you say so. So far, the night in Paris has been mostly quiet and peaceful since the Digimon first appeared earlier… Right now, It's almost hard to believe the world is in danger."  
"You'll definitely see more once it's morning. An eerie Dark Tower will appear and the lost Digimon will go crazy." informed Taichi.  
"It would be a horrible Christmas, huh?"  
"That's why we have to destroy the Dark Tower before morning and return the Digimon to the Digital World." I said.

After driving for a bit, we soon were in Versailles where the famous Versailles Palace was. Everything seemed fine until Grandpa suddenly hit the brakes.  
"Grandpa?" "What's wrong?" Taichi and I questioned before looking around and seeing we were at the gates of the palace and it was just right over there.  
"Strange…" Grandpa had a somber tone to his voice. "Something's wrong here."  
"What is?" We questioned once again as he killed the engine.  
"The gate to the Palace of Versailles is open. And it's lit up at this hour…"  
"It must be a Christmas after-party!" Agumon suggested as Grandpa and I got off the bike.  
"What!?" Grandpa now sounded upset. "Who would do that at the Palace of Versailles!?"  
"You don't have to get so angry…" We all got somewhat nervous about his attitude.  
"H-he's joking…" Taichi tried to tell him.  
"Sorry." Grandpa cooled down.

"Come on, Grandpa, let's hurry up and look for the Dark Tower!" I insisted.  
"Non! As a good Paris citizen, I can't ignore the situation!"  
"But what about the world's crisis?" Taichi asked.  
"It's our national duty to protect the Palace of Versailles. Vive la France!" He charged for the gate and the palace.  
"Grandpa! That's trespassing!" I tried to tell him. He stopped and turned to look at me.  
"Don't worry! The Palace of Versailles has been my playground since I was a kid. It's not a problem!"  
"Grandpa!" I ran after him.  
"Takeru!" Patamon called out as he and the others got out of the side car.  
"See, you shouldn't have called your grandfather!" Taichi told me as we chased after Grandpa.  
"But…"  
"Silence! Be quiet and follow me!"

We soon followed Grandpa deep into the palace before he tried to turn a corner and stopped. We ran up to him and he put his finger to his lip to shush us. We heard the sounds of laugher, drink glasses clinking, and chewing of food. Sounds like there was a party around the corner.  
"What's that?" Grandpa asked as we peaked our heads around the doorway. We could see that apparently three Digimon, who were all these round silver bowling ball like Digimon, were having themselves a grand old time eating and drinking. "What are those things?"  
"That small one is Mamemon." Patamon explained. "He's a Mutant Digimon with a small body but frightening destructive power."  
"They're totally drunk." I said as the three Digimon drank more wine out of their glasses.  
"The big one is BigMamemon. He's a Mutant Digimon that's ten times bigger than a regular Mamemon." Agumon continued.  
"Those Digimon look alike." Taichi observed.  
"The last one with the big arm cannon is MetalMamemon. A Cyborg Digimon that's much stronger than Mamemon." Patamon finished explaining.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

"We're the three Mamemon brothers!" They happily cheered as they clinked the glasses with more wine in them.  
"They're the Digimon who put the world in danger." I informed Michel.  
"How dare they…" Michel growled. "Sneak into the Palace of Versailles and have a party, will you?"  
"Grandpa, calm down!" We tried to hold him back.  
"Hey, look!" Agumon cried.  
"Looks like there's someone else." Patamon noticed. We looked closely and saw at the end of the table this blonde girl with blue eyes that was tied up.  
"She's cute!" Takeru smiled. If I wasn't dating Sora, I'd probably say the same thing.  
"What would Hikari say?" I teased him causing him to blush. Meanwhile, Patamon and Agumon saw the Floramon that was right near her.  
"She's cute!" They both exclaimed.

She looked up as I think she actually noticed us.  
"She has a Digimon, which means…" Takeru looked at me.  
"She's a French Chosen Child!" I finished his statement.  
"Oui. And I, Michel, will rescue the young mademoiselle!" He then marched forward after shoving us out of the way! "Hey, Mamemon brothers!"  
"What?" They turned to him.  
"Occupying the Palace of Versailles is outrageous and unacceptable! Reprehensible, inexcusable!" He then looked over to the girl. "Oh, mademoiselle… I, Michel, have come to save you as an elite knight of Paris." He took a small bow.  
"What's with this old guy's attitude?" BigMamemon questioned.  
"Take that!" Mamemon threw a creamy pastry that hit Michel in the face! The three Digimon laughed.  
"Grandpa!" Takeru shouted as we ran up to him… and took more pastries to the face. Our Digimon soon ran forward.

"Agumon, evolve! GREYMON!"  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"  
"Let's fight outside!" BigMamemon declared and the three brothers flew out a window. Greymon and Angemon followed suit.  
"Hey! Don't damage the Palace!" Michel yelled.  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" His attack knocked away Mamemon and MetalMamemon. Meanwhile, Greymon was taking a load of jabs to the face by BigMamemon and his boxing gloves. Greymon took one more punch before he picked up BigMamemon and tossed him into the air.  
"Mega Flame!" He was hit and knocked into the water.  
"Energy Bomb!" MetalMamemon's cannon fired at Angemon who dodge it. The bomb exploded in the air like a beautiful firework over the palace.

"Oh, tres bien!" exclaimed Michel as we helped untie the girl and her Digimon. "Je suis venu vous sauver." He said.  
"Merci beaucoup. Thank you for saving me." She said in Japanese. "My name is Catherine. Catherine Deneuve. I'm a French Chosen Child." She curtseyed.  
"So you speak Japanese…"  
"Qui. Yes, I do." Takeru and I got back in front of him.  
"If you don't mind us asking, but how did they catch you?" I asked.  
"It happened when a Dark Tower suddenly appeared in the Seine, right near Pont Alexandre III, and Floramon and I went to the river to destroy it. However, there was something there as we heard a sinister laugh before a bomb detonated in the water in front of us. I don't know what happened as we both lost consciousness. When I came to, I found myself a prisoner in the Palace of Versailles." She informed.  
"So that's what happened…" Michel rubbed his goatee.  
"Are there more Digimon other than the three Mamemon brothers?" I questioned once more. We then heard a laughter behind us.

"What, you got a problem?" A Digimon that looked like a metal ball with two horns, a shark's mouth and two arms carrying a chainsaw and bomb laughed at us.  
"I recognize him! He's Giromon! A Machine Digimon that has quite a violent streak!" Floramon told us. Giromon revved up his chainsaw and charged at Angemon with it who had to use his staff to block the spinning blades.  
"Energy Bomb!" MetalMamemon used the distraction to his advantage and fired his attack right into Angemon's back.  
"Deadly Bomb!" Giromon threw his bomb at Greymon which detonated in his chest.  
"Big Smiley Bomber!" BigMamemon's attack also exploded and knocked Greymon and Angemon to the ground as the four Digimon flew away.

"Our enemies are at Perfect-Level." I assumed. "We can't fight them like this. Greymon, let's get to Perfect-Level too!"  
"Alright! Let's go, Angemon!" Takeru chimed in.  
"Floramon, you too!" Catherine ran up next to us.  
"Angemon, super-evolve! HOLYANGEMON!"  
"Greymon, super-evolve! METALGREYMON!"  
"Floramon, evolve! KIWIMON!" HolyAngemon charges forward with his sword and swipes away MetalMamemon and Giromon. Meanwhile, BigMamemon uses his attack against MetalGreymon… but it does nothing to him. He simply strikes him with his claw.  
"Little Pecker!" Kiwimon's attack blows Mamemon high in the sky.  
"Run away!" Giromon panics and with the Mamemon brothers, they all turn tail and run.

"Good. Corner them to the Dark Tower at the Seine like that!" I ordered our Digimon. HolyAngemon picked up Kiwimon and flew with MetalGreymon after them. We all got back in the sidecar, with Catherine hanging onto Michel and Takeru and I in the sidecar, and chased right after the Digimon. We soon arrived at the Seine and the Dark Tower that stood out of it. The Digimon flew up to it and our Digimon was ready to end the fight.  
"Giga Destroyer!" MetalGreymon's missiles hit the Digimon and gave out a bright light across the sky before the four Digimon fell back down to the river's waters. HolyAngemon then used his sword to destroy the tower and caused it to disintegrate.  
"Way to go!" We all cheered as the Digimon reverted back on the stone bank we were standing on.  
"Okay, now we just have to send the Digimon to the Digital World." I said before a bus horn went off and we could see a bunch of children and Digimon on it.  
"Ah, looks like the other Chosen Children around Europe have arrived and brought the other Digimon here." Catherine said.  
"So the crisis is over." Michel gave a small sigh of relief.

The children on the bridge waved at us and said Merry Christmas in their respective languages.  
"Joyeux Noel!" Catherine waved before Takeru and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. Hey, it's France, it's not like I'm going to cheat on Sora; I'm just doing what guys normally do here. Michel tapped Takeru's shoulder and bowed before taking Catherine's hand.  
"Joyeux Noel." He kissed her hand. Oh, that's what you're supposed to do.  
"Joyeux Noel." Floramon blew Agumon and Patamon a kiss.  
"Joyeux Noel!" They shouted. We soon got things set up to return everyone back to the Digital World. Looks like Paris would get a calm Christmas come morning.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Meanwhile, back in Tokyo, a small brown haired girl named Kawada Noriko was chatting with two of her friends. She had a medical mask over her face as she was had some coughing issues at the moment, and tended to get sick a bit more often that other kids. Still, despite the issues, she was slowly starting to improve in terms of strengthen her immune system. Plus, a little coughing fit wasn't going to stop her from hanging out with her classmates.  
"How was your test?" One of her friends asked the other.  
"So-so, I guess…"  
"I totally blew it." Noriko coughed once more. "Bye!"  
"See ya!" She parted ways with her friends before she picked up her green bag and turned around… to find Archnemon looking at her while blowing a small pinwheel.  
 _"_ _She's scary, but… she might understand me. She might make my wish come true…"_ Noriko thought to herself as Archnemon walked right down the nearby alley way.

And Noriko followed right after her…

* * *

Oh, come on, Noriko! Why does no one take Rick Springfield's advice? Don't talk to strangers!

Also... I envy Takeru. Whenever he goes to Paris to visit his grandparents, he can go to Disneyland Paris and Phantom Manor!

Got nothing more to say for this one, see you soon for the next one.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	48. Love, Redeemers, and Blizzards!

Another chapter done fast... nothing to important happened today... well, one thing, but it was only TIGER WINING THE (Bleep)ING MASTERS! HE'S BACK, BABY!  
Sorry...

Shoutouts to **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318,** **MadDogLucario96** and **God of the Challenge** for the reviews.  
I almost forgot, Challenge, you round out my five core members of my fanbase.

Thanks a lot to MadDog for some of the writing he help did in the Rio section of the chapter. And of course, thanks to **JubiaMaJo** for the story drawings once again. I know I commissioned her for them, but I still feel I owe her... so she's going to be fully immortalized in the story when we come to Rio. I'll alert you all if she liked it.

Anyways, let's finish out the world tour.

* * *

 **Chapter 47: Fierce Clash! Love, Redeemers, and Blizzards!**

 _Mérida, Mexico. December 24th, 2002. 2204 Hours. (CDT); 1304 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

After we parted ways with Daisuke and Mimi in Miami, we got onboard the Navy helicopter and flew out to Mérida on the Yucatan peninsula. It was a quiet and short flight as we flew of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We had a bit of conversation with some of the pilots who had a few questions that we answered. They were old friends of Ross's father which is the reason they were taking us out here. Once we touched down outside the city near the jungle where a Dark Tower was standing. We probably attracted a crowd back in the city as Stingmon and Garurumon got to work.

"Fox Fire!" Garurumon's attack knocked out a large chuck of the tower near the base, leaving Stingmon ready to finish it.  
"Spiking Finish!" Stingmon's attack tore through it and cut it in half causing it to fall; it disintegrated before it could hit the ground and destroy any part of the jungle.  
"Nice!" Yamato cheered. I, on the other hand, had gotten word of where the missing Digimon who were last spotted here had ran off to.  
"Yamato-san!" I called out to him as I ran over. "It seems the Digimon we're after escaped southwest to the Mayan ruins in Palenque." He nodded.  
"Okay. Let's go!" We headed back to where the helicopter was and soon took flight to the ruins.

It was about an hour later when we landed in a clearing in the jungles and started to make our way to the ruins. We were in the bushes and looked out to the ruins where we saw a bunch of guards around the ruins. Yamato quietly asked me where all the other Chosen Children were, since they were to meet up with us.  
"Unfortunately, because it's so late, it seems like the other kids can't leave their homes. The country tends to enforce curfew on children a bit more than say back home or in the United States." I explained to him.  
"I see…"  
"The Digimon are in here?" Gabumon questioned, somewhat wondering how unknown creatures were able to somehow sneak by that whole perimeter of guards.  
"Some of the Chosen were trying to lead them to a more empty location, but… they ended up going here and the Chosen were forced to go back home it seems.  
"It can't be helped." Yamato said. "Let's go in, then. First, me and Ken-kun. You two stay in the bushes." He told the Digimon.  
"Okay." I nodded.

We got out of the bushes and headed towards one of the entrance ways into the ruins before a guard spotted us and got in our way.  
"¡No, no!" The guard said in Spanish. Thankfully, I knew three languages: Japanese, English and the main reason why I came here, Spanish. I wonder how Osamu and Sora are doing at the moment, the third language he knows is Italian, not Spanish or Portuguese. Anyways, I soon tried to talk the guard into letting us pass.  
"Por favor, déjame entrar." I asked him to let us in.  
"Los niños deben de irse a dormir a esta hora." He told us that as children, we should be going to be this time.  
"¿Qué?" I loudly questioned him before- shit! He just pulled a damn gun on me! I held my hands up as he smirked and pulled down on the gun hammer. I found myself looking down the barrel of a loaded revolver that if he pulled the trigger… I'm dead.  
"{A-Alright! I will back! Back, alright?}" Yamato exclaimed in broken English.  
"Está bien, nos iremos a casa..." I told him we'd go back home before we turned around and headed back to bushes.

That… was terrifying. I really thought he was going to pull the trigger, especially after he smirked. Thank goodness, Wormmon probably didn't see that… or I'm sure he'd tear that guard to shreds as Stingmon.  
"It's no good." Yamato sighed. "Nothing we can do about it. Let's try to sneak in from behind."  
"Okay." I went along with his suggestion… of course, we try to get in again and get caught…  
"Hey, Ken-chan, what's that language you were speaking to that person?" asked Wormmon.  
"Well, that was Spanish." Wormmon's eyes started to glow as he looked so enamored with my abilities.  
"You can speak Spanish too, Ken-chan?" I actually had to chuckle at him.  
"Well, just enough to get by; I'm not really that fluent in it."  
"I'm impressed." "Yeah, me too!" Yamato and Gabumon added.

We soon got back up and started to try to find one of the rear entrances to the ruins. We kept as much noise as we could to a minimum as we didn't want to get the guards attention again. We poked our heads out of the bushes and found more guards.  
"I guess we'll have to force our way through…" Gabumon reluctantly admitted.  
"Yeah." Yamato sadly had to agree.  
"Who's that?" Wormmon lightly exclaimed and we turned around to find Gennai right behind us!  
"I'm Jose." He told us. "To make it simple, I'm a copy of Gennai." Way ahead of our questions then.  
"We heard about you from Gennai-san." Yamato said in reference to Gennai saying he had allies organizing the other Chosen Children.  
"Thank you for meeting with us." I thanked.  
"No problem." He smiled. "Well, leave this to me." He gave a thumbs up and suddenly ran out of the bushes towards the guards!

He quickly got their attention as a bunch of them confronted him and had their hands right near their guns. He soon started to do some martial arts moves that completely drew the guards complete attention to him. They honestly had no earthly idea what he was doing. Truth be told, neither did we.  
"What's with this person?" Wormmon questioned. Jose soon began to motion us to sneak by and get inside while he kept the guards occupied.  
"I see! Alright, it's our chance!" Yamato said.  
"Right!" I followed him and the Digimon followed us as we snuck on by. After a quick dash, we were soon inside the temple. I have to say… being here… I do wish I could stay longer and just explore the history of this place. Sadly, we had a job to do so there was no time for sightseeing.  
"I heard there's a king's grave at the bottom of these ruins." I gave a little bit of lore to Yamato as we walked deeper into the ruin.  
"Really…?" He nervously chuckled and was starting to sweat a bit. I heard whispers from Takeru that Yamato was bit scared of ghosts.

Meanwhile, Wormmon… was way more frightened. He suddenly screamed before he latched himself on my back.  
"Are you okay, Wormmon?" I took him off my back and held him in my hands. I looked over to a carved stone face that had probably frightened him. He soon jumped back down on the stone floor.  
"Sorry. I shouldn't be scared, right? Oh, yeah! Since you don't like the dark…" He quickly dashed away… and returned with two candles taped to his head! "I'll make it bright for you!" We were all completely questioning where he found all that stuff so fast.  
"I think Wormmon is scarier than the darkness or the ghosts." Gabumon admitted. Yamato broke down and laughed.  
"H-hey, Gabumon!"  
"Sorry." I just gave out a relived sigh.

Wormmon stood out in front as he led the way through the dark passages of the temple as we continued our search for the missing Digimon.  
"This makes it much easier to walk." Yamato told us. "Good idea, Wormmon."  
"Nah, it's nothing…" He turned his head to look at us before he walked right up next to a Gotsumon that turned the corner. The two of them quickly scared each other.  
"Gotsumon?" Yamato questioned.  
"So Wormmon is scary after all?" Gabumon said.  
"I hope he goes back to the Digital World without complaining." As soon as he said that, a small brown haired Mexican girl with two pigtails ran right in front of us and blocked us. She had a stern look on her face before she got happy.  
"¡Buenas noches!" She greeted, telling us 'Good evening.'  
"B-buenas noches." I replied.

"Yo soy Chichos Altuve. Me escapé de casa. ¡Por favor, déjame ayudarte!"  
"What did she say?" Yamato asked me.  
"Her name is Chichos. It seems she sneaked out of her home to come help us."  
"So you're her Digimon partner?" Gabumon pointed to Gotsumon.  
"¿Quién eres tú?" She asked who we were.  
"Yo soy Ken. Ellos son Yamato, Gabumon y Wormmon."  
"Ken…" She put her hands to her cheeks and blushed. Oh, dear. Even in another country, apparently girls are enamored with me. Wormmon made some twitches while Chichos grabbed my arm and started to drag me forward.  
"Wh-what's with this girl?" Wormmon questioned.  
"Yamato is popular, but Ken is popular too!" said Gabumon.

"Ken-chan!" Wormmon tried to jump on me but Chichos pulled me forward and caused Wormmon to face plant on the floor. "Hey, Tacos!" He shouted at her.  
"¡Chichos!" She angrily shouted her name back at him. Jeez… I never realized Wormmon was this defensive about a girl liking me... We're gonna have a long conversation when we get back home. Last thing I need in a few years when I start dating is Wormmon getting jealous and chasing off a girl I like.  
"O-okay… anyway, let's keep going." Yamato tried to defuse the situation. "We have to hurry and return the Digimon who escaped back to the Digital World."  
"R-right!" I nodded.  
"You're right. Let's go, Ken-chan." He started to walk ahead before purposely bumping into Chichos. "Sorry."  
"¡Carnada de pez!"  
"What?" He turned back to look at her.

"Come on, let's hurry." I started to walk ahead as the two stared daggers at each other. Yamato and Gabumon ran up to me as I groaned at their little fight.  
"What did she just say?" Gabumon inquired me.  
"'Fish bait'."  
"Don't tell him what it means." whispered Yamato. We soon continued to walk deeper into the temple before Jose appeared in front of us and freaked out Wormmon once more.  
"The Digimon are over here. Follow me." He pointed towards another hall.  
"Okay." We all nodded. Chichos snickered at Wormmon because of his fear before running after Jose.  
"Sorry. She's just only eight." Gotsumon apologized to Wormmon for her actions.

"Dime, ¿tienes novia?" Chichos held onto my hand as we walked asking if I had a girlfriend. "¿Qué tipo de niñas te gustan?" She then asked what kind of girls I liked. "Y dime, ¿qué opinas de mí?" Finally, she asked what I thought of her. I'm so glad that Wormmon doesn't understand Spanish at the moment, or he would truly lose it.  
"What is she saying?" He asked Jose.  
"'Do you have a girlfriend? What type of girls do you like? What do you think about me?'" No, Jose! Now, Wormmon looks like he's about to blow.  
"She's really straightforward!" Gabumon chuckled.

 _P.O.V. – Yamato Ishida_

We soon walked a pretty good distance into the ruins before we heard the sounds of growls up ahead. We soon found some eyes staring right at us and soon found a Minotarumon and a Dokugmon in one of the chambers.  
"Dokugmon and Minotarumon!" exclaimed Gabumon.  
"This is bad. They're pretty wound up." I observed.  
"Yamato-san, this is a world legacy, so we can't damage it." Ken warned me. Understood, but try telling that to them.  
"You're right. Fighting here would be bad." Jose added.  
"Let's lead them outside." I said.  
"Okay."  
"Gabumon, let's go!" The two of us ran right towards the two Digimon. "Hey, over here!" We flailed our arms before turning around and running for the exit; with the two of them following right after us. The others stood in the corner so they could block them from going back into the chamber.

We kept moving forward until I glanced behind me and saw Chichos trip on a small gap in the floor and fell over hard. She started to cry before Ken went back for her, which caused her to stop crying.  
"¿Estás bien?" He turned around so she could ride on his back. "Aqui tienes." He started to run again before Wormmon tripped himself.  
"Ouch… Ken-chan!" He tried to jump forward as I guess he assumed Ken came back for him as well, but he ended up slamming into Gotsumon's chest. As Gabumon and I ran faster, we could soon see the outside and soon were back in the open air and out of the confined space. We kept trying to put some distance but Minotarumon decided to stop and use his mechanical arm to start damaging the ruins.  
"This is bad! Wormmon!" Ken turned to his partner.  
"Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!"  
"Stingmon! This is an important Mayan cultural heritage, so protect it at all costs!"  
"Got it."

Stingmon took off and shoved the minotaur Digimon away from the ruins and into the jungle nearby.  
"Good! Keep it up, Stingmon!" Ken called out to him before following along. Meanwhile, Dokugmon knocked down a tree along with Minotarumon in the clearing that Stingmon led them to.  
"It's not looking good." I observed. "We need to calm them down somehow."  
"Yamato, it's time to use the power Qinglongmon gave us." Gabumon suggested.  
"Alright. Let's go, Gabumon!"  
"Gabumon, evolve! GARURUMON! Garurumon, super-evolve! WEREGARURUMON!"  
"Gotsumon!" Chichos called out for her partner.  
"Gotsumon, evolve! MONOCHROMON!" Stingmon turned around and quickly grabbed Minotarumon by the horns before Dokugmon tried to jump him.

"Monochromon!" The Digimon followed Chichos' orders and stopped the spider from getting Stingmon in the back and nailed him into the ground. Stingmon threw Minotarumon in the air where WereGarurumon jumped up in the air, punched him in the stomach before knocking him into the ground as well.  
"Okay, that's it. Now, Ichijouji!" Jose pulled out Ken's laptop and held it out for us to send the Digimon back.  
"Right! Digital Gate, open!" The two Digimon were soon sent back to the Digital World. I gave Ken a thumbs up as we completed our job. We all then soon discovered that Chichos had fallen asleep.  
"Stingmon, eres increíble…" Ken was surprised but Wormmon looked disappointed.  
"She's insulting me even in her sleep." Ken chuckled.  
"She's not. She said Stingmon is amazing." That suddenly made Wormmon blush as now he was proud of himself. "Come on, let's take her back home."

We soon got her back home and left her right outside the house as we watched from a distance. Her parents opened the door and quickly embraced her. Probably wondering where she was and what she was doing out at this hour. Gotsumon was hiding out behind a pot out of their view.  
"Ken-chan, how's 'goodbye' in Spanish?" Wormmon asked.  
"'Adios'."  
"Adios, Chichos." They took her back inside and we headed back to the helicopter. Our work was now done so we needed to get back to Miami to meet with Daisuke and Mimi, hopefully they were already done with their job too.

 _Copacabana, Rio de Janerio, Brazil. December 25th, 2002. 0004 Hours. (BRT); 1104 Hours. (JST)  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

The first thing we noticed when Sora and I were dropped off by Imperialdramon was how balmy the air was, even at this hour. Compared to the biting cold winds of Japan, it was perfect weather to shed our coats, which we did. The city was in complete spirits with it being Christmas time in the city. Especially since we landed in Copacabana, one of the most popular destinations in this city. With everything going on, it was almost hard to believe that there was any danger at all, at least danger in terms of Digimon attacks I mean.

"So this is Rio de Janeiro, huh?" Sora said, looking around and seeing all of the lush green surrounding us and in the hilltops outside of the city. "Kinda wish I had brought a bathing suit with me. This weather's perfect for that, even if it is nighttime at the moment."  
"I'll say!" Piyomon agreed, a smile on her face as she flew happily through the air. "It's lovely! I wonder what it's like during the day!" I had to smile and shake my head.  
"We're not on vacation, Sora-kun, Piyomon." I pointed out, much to their disappointment. "We have a job to do, and we must get it done."  
"I know, I know… still, wish we honestly could get some fun for once." We looked around the beach and saw that due to Imperialdramon's landing, as well as Monodramon and Piyomon being around; we had caught a lot of attention. All around us, I could hear people muttering to each other in a language I didn't understand. I knew it was Portuguese, but what they were saying was beyond me. Hopefully, someone speaks Japanese, or we're gonna have issues with the Chosen Children of South America.  
"Come on." I grabbed her hand. "Let's get off the beach."

The two of us made our way off of the sand and back onto the sidewalk. Since it was close to New Year's Eve as well as it being Christmas morning, the streets and beaches were packed with people. We heard many different languages as we walked down the street until finally stopping in a park that was thankfully less crowded.  
"So, who are we looking for?" Monodramon asked. I looked down at the papers that Koushiro had given us. The portraits were of a boy and girl who lived close to the city, with their names underneath and the other important details we needed; all of it from e-mail correspondents that Koushiro had set up with the Chosen Children around the world.  
"Apparently, the two kids were are supposed to meet up with are named Pedro, who actually lives here in the city, and Jubia, who's actually Argentinean and from Buenos Aries. Their Digimon partners are PetitMamon and Bearmon." I explained.  
"So, how are we going to find them?" Sora asked. "Rio's such a big city that it won't be easy."

"Ei!" A voice called out to us in an unfamiliar language. I didn't know what that actually meant, but it seemed like the owner of the voice was trying to get our attention. Sora and I turned to see two children running towards us…along with two Digimon. One of the Digimon was a small black bear with a backwards baseball cap on its head and leather belts wrapped around its fists. The other one was a small purple devil-like Digimon with cute red eyes and a staff in its hand. It clung to the girl's shoulder. As for the kids, they looked closer to our age. The boy was black haired and green eyed while dressed in a Brazilian National Team football jersey, green shoes and some black cargo shorts. The girl had fiery red hair and brown eyes with a black sleeveless shirt, black boots with fishnets on her legs and a red flannel skirt.

"Hello," We greeted, saying it in Japanese. The kids looked at us puzzled, obviously not understanding our greeting. Yeah, that's what I feared; they don't understand Japanese. The boy, who I assumed was Pedro, said something in Portuguese that I couldn't understand, but that was when the bear Digimon stepped in.  
"Greetings, strangers." It said in flawless Japanese. "Welcome to Rio. What brings you here?"  
"We were sent here by Gennai-san and Koushiro-kun." answered Sora. "We are two Chosen Children from Japan. My name is Takenouchi Sora, and this is Ichijouji Osamu. Would you mind asking your partner and his friend to tell us their names?"  
"Certainly," said the bear before turning back to the boy and repeating what Sora had just said in Portuguese.  
"Meu nome é Pedro. Isso aqui é Bearmon." The boy introduced himself.  
"Mi nombre es Jubia y este es mi socio de Digimon, PetitMamon." Jubia introduced herself.  
"Hello, pleased to meet the both of you!" PetitMamon gave us all a bit of a wink.

"The pleasure is all ours." I bowed. This was going to be difficult if we couldn't find a language to speak and had to rely mostly on Digimon to communicate. Maybe they understand English. "{If you don't mind me asking, but do either of you speak English?}" I asked. Both their eyes widened.  
"{Yes! Yes, we do!}" Pedro smiled.  
"{Thank goodness… I was worried we were going to have trouble talking with you.}" Jubia wiped her forehead in relief.  
"{That's good to hear. Honestly, I wish we could hang out, but we all know what is going on.}" Sora said. The four of them nodded.  
"{Right, we need to deal with the Digimon that are running around.}"  
"{And meet up with the other South American Chosen Children and send all the Digimon back to the Digital World.}" added Pedro.

"{Okay then, so… where are we meeting up?}" I asked. Pedro pointed upward to the top of the mountain nearby and the large statue on it… and by that was a Dark Tower.  
"Cristo Redentor. {Christ the Redeemer… and next to the son of God is affront to his glory and love. A black object of darkness that corrupts the land and brings harm…}" Pedro growled as he looked to the tower.  
"{Forgive Pedro. He's a very devout Catholic.}" We both nodded in understanding, although I was still a bit uneasy considering my actions with those towers.  
"{No matter what a person had done… he didn't judged their past. He suffered on the cross to erase and forgive the sins of our past.}" He then looked at us. "{Sorry, don't mean to preach.}"  
"We're all planning to meet up with the other Chosen Children at the base of the statue." Bearmon explained.  
"And with them, all the wild Digimon that are around the continent that need to be returned." PetitMamon pointed out.  
"{Come on, we'll catch a taxi and head up there.}" Jubia led the way.

 _P.O.V. – Sora Takenouchi_

We walked out of the park and into the crowded streets of the city where there were still many celebrating.  
"{Boy, you guys sure have fun at Christmas.}" I looked around as we kept up with Jubia and Pedro.  
"{Eh, half of it I think is still from winning the World Cup this year.}" Pedro smiled which earned him a look from Jubia.  
"{Oh, you just had to bring that up.}" She smirked and gave him a light punch on the arm.  
"{Not my fault Argentina got knocked out in the preliminaries.}" He chuckled. Oh, yeah, I forgot. The World Cup was hosted in Japan and Korea this year. We were all more focused on fighting the Kaiser than to keep track of that.  
"So you guys go on a lot of adventures?" Bearmon asked our Digimon.  
"Yep! Me and Sora have gone on so many!" Piyomon nudged my leg as I held her hand causing me to smile.  
"You two remind me of Jubia and myself." PetitMamon jumped up onto Jubia's shoulder and gave an affectionate nudge as well.  
"They're certainly in the holiday spirit." Monodramon observed with Osamu.  
"Looks that way doesn't it?" He said as we soon found a taxi.

We were driven pretty far up the mountain before we all hopped out. The area was pretty quiet which made Pedro very nervous.  
"{Something's wrong… shouldn't be this quiet.}"  
"{Well, there is a Dark Tower here, Pedro.}" Jubia told him.  
"{No… there's something more…}" We soon got an answer when we heard a loud growling and soon found a black, three-headed dog Digimon climbing out of the trees and growling at us.  
"Look out! That's Cerberumon! He's one angry dog that will unleash his Hellfire on all that gets in his way!" PetitMamon shouted. We all quickly took cover as the launched his flaming attack right at us.  
"{Everyone, listen, we need to evolve now to take him on!}" I said to the others.  
"{Right!}" They all nodded.  
"Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!"  
"Bearmon, evolve! GRYZMON!" Gryzmon was a large grizzly bear Digimon.  
"PetitMamon, evolve! WITCHMON!" Witchmon was a witch dressed in red riding on a broom.

"Come on, doggy! Follow me!" Witchmon teased him as she flew by his head. "Balulua Gale!" A large gust of wind soon hit the three-headed dog in the face causing him to flinch.  
"Strike Fang!" "Crescent Dawn!" Both Strikedramon and Gryzmon tried to bite at the dog but he quickly knocked Gryzmon on the ground and sent Strikedramon crashing into Witchmon!  
"Sora! He's a Perfect-Level Digimon! The others don't stand a chance!" Piyomon exclaimed.  
"Then let's fight fire with fire!" I held up my D-3 and she nodded.  
"Piyomon, evolve! BIRDRAMON! Birdramon, super-evolve! GARUDAMON!"  
"{Careful everybody! Don't damage the statue!}" Pedro warned. Garudamon nodded and flew up into the sky as the other Digimon backed away from Cerberumon.  
"Shadow Wing!" Garudamon's attack flew down and stuck Cerberumon hard into the ground. She then flew down and picked him up… before petting him on the head as he calmed down.  
"See? Told you he was just a big doggy." Witchmon chuckled.

We soon got out Osamu's laptop and got everything set up.  
"Digital Gate, open!" He held out his D-3 and activated the gate. We soon put Cerberumon in position and had him sent back home to the Digital World.  
"{Thanks for all the help, you two.}" Pedro thanked us.  
"{Yeah, now we just have to wait for the rest of the other Chosen Children to bring the other Digimon.}" Jubia added. We nodded and sat around waiting for the other children to come. Osamu and I soon gazed in awe of Christ the Redeemer. The marble eyes of the statue gazed down at us, almost as if it were staring into our souls. It was one of the most incredible statue that I have ever seen in my life. I had seen pictures of the Tian Tun Buddha in Hong Kong, but never had actually seen it before in person. Seeing this… pictures could never truly describe it. I looked over to Osamu who just continued to stare at it. I don't know what's going on in his mind, but I sure hope that he will someday forgive himself.

 _Moscow, Russia. December 25th, 2002. 0704 Hours. (MSK); 1304 Hours. (JST)  
P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

Why did I have to draw the short straw today? I'm pretty sure the others are getting much warmer weather; meanwhile I'm freezing to death here! Ross and I were having certainly a lot to deal with as we tried to remove the tower in Moscow. We had to deal with a large swarm of Flymon that were flying over the city. Of course, we decided to wait for some of Eastern Europe's Chosen Children to come and help us with that.  
"Alright! Let's do it, Ross-san!" I shouted to him while riding Aquilamon.  
"Just watch and learn, Miyako-kun!" He smiled on Guilmon's Perfect-Level, MegaloGrowmon.  
"Atomic Blaster!" MegaloGrowmon fired his attack and blew apart a large chunk of the tower.  
"Glide Horn!" Aquilamon dived down and soon finished off the rest of the tower.

We soon were met by three of the Chosen right near the Kremlin, two girls and a boy, along with their partners; a Kuwagamon, a Snimon and a Unimon.  
"So you're the Russian Chosen Children!" I exclaimed.  
"Anna Litvinchuk." A blonde haired girl next to Unimon introduced herself.  
"Oh, Anna!" I walked up and gave her a hug.  
"Laura Koslov." Another blonde girl, this one with a hat on her head and stood next to Snimon, introduced himself as well.  
"Oh, Laura!" I hugged her too.  
"Yuri Fedorenko." The boy besides the Kuwagamon finally introduced himself.  
"Oh, Yuri!" I gave him a hug as well. "Thank you for coming, everyone. We're Miyako, Ross, and…"  
"I'm Guilmon." "I'm Hawkmon." Our Digimon quickly presented themselves.

We all smiled at each other.  
"Anna, Laura, Yuri." I pointed to them and they nodded back.  
"Miyako, Ross…" Anna pointed to us.  
"Guilmon, Hawkmon." Laura pointed to our Digimon and we nodded. We ended up doing the same thing again before I just shouted at the fact that we actually understand each other.  
"I give up! We can't communicate at all!" I grabbed my head.  
"Unless we understand the language…" Hawkmon said. We then saw Ross snickering.  
"What's so funny? Can't you see we're in trouble?"  
"Yeah… but thankfully… YA znayu, kak govorit' po-russki." My eyes widened.  
"WHAT!?"  
"I just said 'I know how to speak Russian'. Kak u menya kstati? Khorosho?" He turned to look at the others.  
"Otlichno!" Yuri gave a thumbs up.

"Ross… how do you…?" Guilmon questioned.  
"My father. It was still the Cold War so he took up Russian while at Annapolis. Hey, never knew when you were actually going to need to use it. Anyways, he taught me, never thought I was going to use it myself, but hey! Here we are. Why do you think I volunteered first for this?"  
"So why didn't you say so sooner?" I asked.  
"Where's the fun in not seeing you break down like that?" He laughed. I just punched him in the arm. "Easy, Miyako-kun, it's just a joke. I wasn't going to keep going with it."  
"Fine… but no more surprises like that, okay?" I crossed my arms.  
"Promise. Now then, we've had some e-mails so we know each other pretty good. Anna is from Barysaw in Belarus, Laura is from Rostov-on-Don here in Russia and Yuri is from Odessa in the Ukraine. I'll be sure to translate for you for what they say."

"{So, you two are from Japan?}" Anna asked.  
"{Well, yes, but actually Miyako-kun is a native. My father is in the United States Navy and is stationed in Japan so that's why I'm here too.}"  
"{You never did mention that in your e-mails. We all assumed you were just from America.}" Laura said.  
"{Sorry about that. But nice to see you guys here. Now then, the time to chat will be later; right now…}"  
"We've got to send the Digimon back to the Digital World." I pointed to the Flymon above while Ross translated for me.  
"{I must ask, Ross, can Guilmon fly?}" Yuri wondered.  
"{Yes. Either in his armor form of Waibanmon or his Perfect-Level of MegaloGrowmon. Considering all the Digimon can fly then, we'll form a squadron to bring down the Flymon so we can send them back with no hassle.}" The three of them nodded and agreed with the plan.

"Ross-san is certainly full of surprises." Hawkmon observed.  
"I swear, I think I know everything about him and then he pulls something like this on me." Guilmon chuckled.  
"Miyako, listen, the only words that we'll really say up there are going to be right, left, and attack." Ross walked up to me. "So, I think you should probably know them." I nodded. "Okay, pravil'no means right, ostavil is left, and ataka means attack. Think you got that?"  
"Think so… pravil'no, ostavil, ataka. Bingo!" He smiled.  
"Good, think you can spout those in the air, considering you're leading the flight."  
"Wait? I am? Why?"  
"Consider it making up for my earlier joke."  
"Wow… thanks, Ross-san." I smiled before getting a determined look on my face and facing the others. "Okay, let's get to the skies and bring those Digimon home, okay?"  
"Okay!" They all said.  
"Pravil'no." "Ostavil." "Ataka." Their three Digimon chimed in.

We all got high in the skies above Moscow and were soon flying fast towards the Flymon horde.  
"Digimon squadron, commence operation!" I shouted. I looked over to see Ross smirk. Guess he's thinking he's been sort of an influence to me considering what I just said was something that he would probably say.  
"Aye-aye, Captain Inoue!" He cried. We soon came across the first group of the swarm which fired their stingers at us.  
"Pravil'no!" We all dived right. "Ostavil!" We then ducked left to avoid more stingers. "Ataka!"  
"Holy Shot!" "Shadow Sickle!" "Scissor Arms!" "Double Edge!" "Blast Laser!" Our Digimon dealt with the Flymon in very short order, and dropped them all in to the rivers of Moscow.  
"We did it!" "Way to go!" We quickly cheered, but we still had more Flymon to deal with.  
"Alright! Keep it up, everyone!" I shouted. I looked back and saw the others salute me. "Go! Go! DigiRangers!" Wait, did I just make a Super Sentai reference? Eh, never mind, focus on the job at hand.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We dealt with the rest of the swarm with total ease; it wasn't even much of a challenge. We gathered all the defeated Flymon in the Moskva River and Miyako soon opened up her laptop so we could send them home.  
"Digital Gate, open!" Miyako shouted as she held out her D-3 and the Digimon were soon sent back to the Digital World. We said our thanks to Anna, Laura and Yuri before Miyako's stomach started to growl.  
"Sorry… I got so hungry…" She embarrassingly rubbed her head.  
"Probably has to do with the time change and the fact that it's way past lunch time back home." I believed.  
"We're starving too." Guilmon groaned.  
"Indeed…" added Hawkmon.  
"{Would you guys be willing to have some piroshki?}" Anna offered. Miyako and the Digimon's spirits shot up.  
"{And some borscht too?}" Laura offered as well.

In all honesty, all of our mouths started to water as we were all pretty hungry.  
"You're really going to treat us?" Miyako cried.  
"Well, I wouldn't lie with the translation, would I?" She glared back at me causing me to hold my hands up defensively.  
"This made coming all the way to Russia worth it!" Hawkmon declared.  
"Really!" Guilmon chimed in. We soon heard footsteps and found one of those Gennai clones that Koushiro informed standing in front of us.  
"Sorry I'm late. I'm Ilya. To put it simply, I'm a copy of Gennai."  
"Nice to meet you, but you're actually way late, we got everything handled." I told him.  
"Actually, I'm afraid I need you to go north now. Some Chosen Children from Siberia have chased the Mammon there." Our spirits dropped hard.  
"Uh, how far north exactly?" Miyako asked.

Just our luck! It's way far north in a damn blizzard! The three Chosen Children that had herded the Mammon all had Yukidarumon as partners and were trying to corral them in an isolated location. However, they still needed us to bring the Digimon back to the Digital World. Jesus… I don't think I've ever been this cold in my life.  
"It's freezing! I'm hungry!" Miyako complained to me as we headed to the rendezvous point.  
"Nothing we can do about that. Come on, let's wrap this up quickly and go back to Moscow for some warm food… before we become the next in a long line of General Winter's victims." I told her.  
"Agreed!" We soon dived in on the Mammon as soon as we spotted them.  
"Blast…" "Atomic…" They didn't get a chance to use their attack as a Mammon fired his tusks at us and forced us to break off.  
"Are you okay, Miyako-san?" Aquilamon asked in concern.  
"My hands are so numb I may fall!" Damn… I can barely feel mine too. We just weren't dressed for this cold.  
"We have to settle this now or they'll freeze to death!" MegaloGrowmon insisted.

The three Yukidarumon fired their attacks at the five Mammon causing a welcomed distraction.  
"I'm… so cold…" I heard Miyako mutter.  
"Miyako-san, don't fall asleep!" Aquilamon tried to keep her awake.  
"Miyako-kun!" "Hang in there!" Myself and MegaloGrowmon shouted at her causing her to wake up once more.  
"Can we really defeat all these Mammon in this cold weather?" I said to myself. Another barrage of those tusks got too close and I ended up losing my grip and found myself falling to the earth below. I didn't get a chance to scream before I felt that cable on MegaloGrowmon's back wrapping around me.  
"Hang on, that's my bad!" He apologized as we landed on the ground.  
"Are you okay?" Miyako ran over to me.  
"Eh, this one wasn't even close." I smirked underneath the homemade face mask I had on.

Our attention was soon turned to the large horde of Mammon that was soon charging right for us. However, we suddenly saw a small object in the sky behind them approaching fast before it turned out to be Imperialdramon! His high speeds caused a shockwave that knocked all the mammoths to the ground. The Mammon were soon contained and the blizzard appeared to finally die down at the most opportune time as Imperialdramon landed and dropped off everyone, excluding Hikari and Koushiro.  
"You okay?" Daisuke asked us.  
"Yeah…" I sighed. "Could use a warm bath, but we'll live." Ilya soon ran over to us with a laptop of his own.  
"Ilya-san." Miyako turned to him.  
"Now, let's send the Mammon to the Digital World." He held open the laptop. A moment later, the Mammon herd was sent back home. "Good job. Well, I'll be going now. We're still going to be busy for a while."  
"Okay. Thanks a lot." I waved at him before he vanished into a digital light. Yep, he's definitely a clone of Gennai.

"Now we just need to pick up Hikari-chan and Koushiro-san in Hong Kong and go home." declared Daisuke.  
"Go home?" Miyako questioned.  
"It's past five PM on December 25th in Japan, so we should go back." Ken informed.  
"Eh…!" Miyako made a loud crying moan, like she was about to have a fit. "What about the borscht? And the piroshki?"  
"You can find that in Japan." Daisuke dismissed.  
"But we wanted to try the real thing!" Miyako started to cry as she held onto me while Hawkmon and Guilmon held each other's arms and cried too.  
"Would you three get a grip?" I groaned. "And Miyako-kun, please let go before Mimi-chan kills you. I can see her sharpening the knife in her eyes."  
"I'm doing no such thing!" She exclaimed. I smiled at her.  
"Just being silly, sweetheart." We soon got back on Imperialdramon and began the final trip back home. The job was done. The Dark Towers were destroyed and the Digimon sent home. I'd sure love to see the looks on Archnemon and Mummymon's faces when they discover how their plan has failed.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

In a computer intelligence building in Moscow, Russian cyber-analysts were hard at work trying to recover any data they could get on the Digimon.  
"How's everything going?" A general asked one of the men working at the computers.  
"It's no good. The rest of the data on the monsters is nowhere to be found."  
"It's the same in other countries as well." Another man informed.  
"What is going on here?" The general questioned. Ilya closed his computer as his job was now done, along with all that helped Gennai. Around the world, the Chosen Children were all celebrating the holidays. Wallace and Michael were enjoying a nice little party on Michael's father's private jet as they flew back to New York. The Poi brothers all had Hikari on their minds. Chichos was happily dreaming of Ken and Stingmon. Anna, Laura, and Yuri were all in a small bed and breakfast in Moscow enjoying some piroshki and borscht. Pedro and Jubia were being part of a large parade that was going on in the streets of Rio. Dingo and Ganimon were enjoying some seafood mix for Christmas. And Takeru's grandparents were treating Catharine to a nice Christmas breakfast before planning to take her home.

However, while the Chosen Children were on Imperialdramon and on their way back to Japan, Archnemon and Mummymon were spending their whole day working on their sinister plot, unchallenged. A young brown haired boy named Shibata Hiroshi was standing alone on one of the bridges that hung over the busy streets of Tokyo looking sad. A large gray box truck pulled up not too far underneath him. He soon turned and found Archnemon right beside him. A minute later, she was back in the passenger seat of the truck with Mummymon behind the wheel.

And the two of them drove away in the cold December night…

* * *

Boy... those two work fast considering what we'll see in the next chapter.

So, I honestly really don't have much to add after all this except for changing the location Ken and Yamato go to from Acapulco to Merida at the start considering the distances. And that's really it.

Apologizes, but the next week I've got some papers to write, so don't expect anything for a while as I'm going on a bit of a hiatus. Maybe I could sneak in a chapter but the next ten days will be busy for me. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	49. Army of Darkness! The Dark Seed!

Okay, so I'm now finally back. Sorry about it all but finals papers really drain me of my time... and my ADHD doesn't help.

Shoutout to **bailey13** , **Evan Vergel** , and **shadowmwape** , for the faves and follows.

And shoutouts to **God of the Challenge** , **DigimonAT0318** , **Whiteling and MadDogLucario96** for the reviews.

Oh, and for those of you wanting to know, Jubia very much loved the fictionalized version of herself, however, she's in a spot of bother so if you guys could, donate a few dollars to her so she can get a new screen and get back to drawing amazing works.

That all out of the way, let's get back to work.

* * *

 **Chapter 48: Army of Darkness! The Dark Seed!**

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 1816 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Finally we were back home! After our global adventure that only took a few hours in reality, we all landed back in Odaiba as we all started to get ready to head home and at least finally spend what's left of Christmas with our folks. The good news was that we stopped Archnemon and Mummymon's plan cold and now they've got nothing. Of course, we still need to deal with them but right now, we just needed to rest for a bit.  
"Finally, we can go home!" Daisuke practically read my mind as we all were standing near the bay.  
"I'm so hungry! I want to have dinner now!" complained Miyako. "Borscht! Piroshki!" Is she still on that? Come on, Miyako.  
"What are you on about?" Daisuke questioned which caused Miyako to blush.  
"A-anyway, I'm starving!"

"Let's go home now." Taichi suggested as we started to move.  
"Okay. But…" Hikari seemed worried about something.  
"But?"  
"I'm worried about what our enemies will do next." Ah, that explains it. That is true, we've stopped this plan… but what exactly do they still have up their sleeves?  
"Yeah. They won't give up just yet." Takeru reminded.  
"You're right." Taichi nodded.  
"But you know…" We all looked over to Daisuke who spoke up. "We worked really hard today, so let's just take a rest for now. Prepare for what will come, I mean." We all stood wide eyed and speechless with what he just said. "Huh?" He noticed our silence. "Did I say something weird?" Well, kind of. It sounded very unlike you.  
"N-no…" Taichi stammered for a moment there. "You actually said something good for a change, Daisuke." Now it was his turn to blush.  
"Really?" He rubbed his nose like he was Dr. Cox or something.

"What a simpleton." Miyako shrugged causing us to laugh.  
"Hey, what's so funny?" He accused.  
"Relax, Daisuke-kun, I'm just kidding."  
"Well, we'll be going now." Osamu informed as he started to walk the other direction.  
"Merry Christmas everyone." Ken bowed and followed after him.  
"Right, their house is in the opposite direction."  
"Ichijouji-san is working hard, isn't he?" observed Koushiro. "That's great." It's true. He's certainly come a long way from being the Kaiser. I only hope he'll soon finally forgive himself about it all and truly start to move on.

 _Takaishi Residence, Odiaba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 1846 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

"I'm home!" I announced as I opened the door to the apartment and walked in. I saw Mom's head bolt around the corner at the end of the hallway.  
"Takeru, you're back!" She exclaimed as I sat down and started to take my shoes off at the door.  
"Y-yeah. I had to go out all of a sudden… Sorry I'm back so late." I said.  
"Listen, I heard about the monsters rampaging all over the world on the news… plus Mom and Dad called before… that was Digimon running around right?" I stopped untying.  
"Yeah…"  
"And you all got involved to stop it right?"  
"Yeah, we did…" I took them off and then stood back up before giving her a reassuring smile. "But we're okay! Don't worry."  
"Yep! All taken care of!" chimed in Patamon who was on my head. Mom then smiled and nodded.  
"Okay, I trust you. Both of you." She gave Patamon a quick tap on his nose causing him to giggle.

"Although…" She spoke up again as we walked down the hall. "There's one thing that's bothering me… I was out doing some last minute shopping and some work as well the other day when I ran into Ross-kun's father… as well as a strange man." I stopped in my tracks.  
"A strange man?"  
"He said something strange about the case from three years ago not being over yet." I suddenly turned around and ran back to her. "He was the same man who contacted me three years ago, asking for details on what happened in Hikarigaoka and Odaiba." My eyes widened. "After today with the Digimon… I think that's what he meant by his words. I wonder if he's involved in this case as well…"  
"Mom, was he human?" I questioned loudly. _"Did she actually run into Mummymon!?"  
_ "'Human'?" Maybe not.  
"No, never mind. I was just asking." I backed down. Still, this is concerning, and she said Ross's dad was with her… I better call him later.

 _Motomiya Residence, Odiaba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 1851 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Mom, dinner!" I said as I walked into the apartment. I could smell she was cooking something.  
"Welcome back." She told me, pretty calm what with everything that has happened. She didn't even ask where I was during all this. That question came from Jun who was sitting on the couch.  
"Where have you been?"  
"None of your business." I told her while looking at the table in front of her and seeing what looked like a concert ticket torn in half.  
"What's with that attitude? You're so annoying!"  
"Here's a follow-up news report." The anchorman on the TV said. "All the monster that had appeared around the world vanished at around five in the evening. The details have not been confirmed as of yet." Well, at least we weren't caught on a camera or something. I then headed into my room as Jun growled at the table.

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 1935 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

"We're home!" Ken and I said as we walked into the house. Hopefully, Mom wasn't worried too much about us at the moment. Don't really want to put her through all that hell again.  
"Ken-chan! Osamu-chan! Where have you been?" She dashed into the hall. Guess we did make her worry.  
"Sorry, we were with some friends…" Ken lied. We didn't have Monodramon or Wormmon with us as they were outside, trying to get to the balcony outside my room. I think Wormmon can climb up easy like the bug he is, but I think Monodramon might have a bit more difficulty.  
"With friends?" She then calmed down. "Well, I'm glad you're safe."  
"We're sorry." I apologized for the both of us.  
"Tamachi has been in a panic since morning. And neither of you weren't coming home, so I was really worried about you two. Call me next time you'll be late, okay?"  
"Okay." We told her as we went into my room.  
"Would you guys like dinner?"  
"Yeah, in a bit." I said as I closed the door.

We then turned around and saw Wormmon hop onto the patio before Monodramon struggled right behind him. I walked over to the patio door and opened it up to let them in.  
"Why can't we just use the elevator like everyone else?" Wormmon questioned which caused both of us to laugh.  
"Yeah… it be easier than free climbing the side." Monodramon panted as he was out of wind, causing us to laugh harder.  
"Sorry, guys… it's just you know, it would be hard to explain to Mom and Dad about you guys if we walked in through the front." I reminded. While everyone was looking away, I thought I caught the glimpse of a shadow streaking across the night sky just right near the building. My look got more cold which the others noticed.  
"Onii-san, what's wrong?" Ken asked.  
"No, it's nothing." I assured them before I glanced back outside. _"Archnemon?"_

 _Iori Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 1952 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

Grandfather and I were paying our respects to Father at his shrine that we had in the apartment shortly after I came back home.  
"How did my father die?" I asked Grandfather as we stopped praying. He looked at me slightly funny.  
"Why all of a sudden?" He knows that I knew the answer.  
"Well, it's just…"  
"Hiroki lost his life protecting an overseas government VIP in London. I know I've told you this before."  
"That's right…"  
"Is there something you're not satisfied with?"  
"No… I was just thinking about the fact that he died protecting other people." I then sighed. "Sorry…" I got up and started to head back to my room.

 _Inoue Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 2014 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

I put down my bowl of food after I finished eating. Going almost all day without much food is something I don't like to do.  
"Thanks for the meal!" I shouted.  
"Are you done with dinner?" Chizuru asked me as she looked up from the book she was reading. "Can you go call Dad and Sis then?"  
"Okay." I got up and got dressed to go outside. I then quickly ran over to the store and opened the door. "Dad! Sis! Dinner's ready!"  
"Okay." Momoe told me before I walked back out and stretched.  
"It's so peaceful…" I said to myself. "It's like what happened this afternoon didn't happen.

 _Yagami Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 25th, 2002. 2224 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

It was a nice Christmas night before we got a call from Takeru and found out through Phil about the strange man, Yukio Oikawa, and how he somehow knew about all that had just happened. Could it be possible? Could he be the man we were looking for? The one controlling Archnemon and Mummymon? We all decided that wasn't probably true. How could a human control those cruel monsters? But, it cause out discussion to be changed to what we had a feeling was coming. Archnemon and Mummymon must have a new plan they're working on… and we might have to go further than we have before.

"What are you going to do?" Taichi asked as we talked in my dark room; only illuminated by my small desk light.  
"Well…"  
"This isn't over yet."  
"Those two are not going to go quietly and we know it." added Ross.  
"I know." I nodded.  
"Even if Daisuke and the others are willing to fight, they've only destroyed Evil Rings and Spirals so far." Taichi continued.  
"They've also destroyed the Dark Tower Digimon…"  
"They looked like Digimon, but they were just transformed Dark Towers." Agumon said.  
"Yeah. That's why they could defeat them without hesitating." agreed Taichi.

"What about Ken-kun and Daisuke-kun with Chimairamon and Chocomon…" I continued to argue.  
"You're right about it there… but can Miyako and Iori do the same thing they did?" Guilmon asked.  
"I told them during that fight at the dam that they'll come to a choice about destroying a Digimon. It remains to be seen though…" Ross sighed.  
"It could be like three years ago…" Taichi darkly stated which caused me to tense up. "The time will come when they have to fight in order to destroy a Digimon for real."  
"Archnemon and Mummymon are still somewhere in this world, right?" Tailmon questioned.  
"Yeah. We'll have to be prepared."

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

"Good night." I told Mom and Dad as I headed to bed, Ken was already going to sleep in his room. I then headed for my room and got ready before I eventually crawled into bed. "Good night, Monodramon." I said as I rolled over.  
"Good night, Osamu-chan." I tried to sleep for a bit but my mind was still thinking about that shadow that I saw before.  
"It bothers me…" I quietly muttered to myself.  
"Osamu-chan… what's wrong?" Monodramon asked in concern.  
"No, it's nothing." I smiled and assured him. "Let's sleep. You must be tired."  
"Just a bit." He yawned as he fell on his back to sleep. "Good night, Osamu-chan." He said once more.  
"Good night." I closed my eyes.

A desert. An all too familiar desert and a monster that fell dead before Ken and myself. These were more memories of our previous journey… but ones that I completely forgotten.  
"We did it, Ken-chan!" "We won, Osamu-chan!" Wormmon and Monodramon cheered for what they just accomplished. The monster soon disintegrated into data and I soon saw something strange flying towards us from it in the sandstorm we got caught in.  
"Watch out, Ken!" I shouted as I pushed Ken out of the way of those things; just to feel something hit my neck and shoot searing pain throughout my body. "Augh!" I screamed out in pain.  
"Onii-san! Ahhh!" Ken cried out before he shouted too.

"Augh!" I screamed as I woke back up and stood straight up.  
"Osamu-chan, what's wrong!? Get a hold of yourself!" Monodramon patted me on the back to try and calm me down after my scare.  
"A dream?" I questioned as I panted to get some air back.  
"Did you have a nightmare?" I turned to look at him.  
"Monodramon…"  
"What is it?"  
"Something… did something happen towards the end of that adventure we had two years ago? When we first met?"  
"Yes… yes it did."  
"Back then, did I injure my neck?" I rubbed it and didn't feel anything wrong with it. Monodramon looked guilty.  
"I remember that. I was really worried about you because I thought you were going to die… Ken-chan too." Huh? What did he mean by Ken?

"I… I can barely remember what happened towards the end."  
"What about it?"  
"Well, I'd like to fill in the gaps and try to find out what exactly happened, you know? Maybe figure out how I ended up becoming the Kaiser… what happened to me after that?"  
"You recovered from the injury and you and Ken-chan returned to this world."  
"Is that all?"  
"Do you remember something else?" I shook my head.  
"Not really… most of the journey has become clear… but the ending of it… perhaps the key to solving all it… it still remains in a hazy." I then nodded. "Yeah, I know it must be."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

On the cool morning of December 26th, the Chosen Children were all relaxing after their long day of work on Christmas. At Daisuke's apartment, he was eating some jelly toast as he was watching the news.  
"We reported on the strange phenomena regarding the appearance of monsters around the world." The reporter said. "On other news… several elementary school students in the Tokyo area went missing yesterday afternoon." As soon as that was said, Daisuke dropped his toast. He wasn't the only one as many of the other Chosen were watching the news as well. "Police are investigating whether or not this is related to any other cases."  
"Children are missing!?" Osamu jumped out of his seat.  
"We hope they are safe…"  
"It is worrisome."  
"Osamu-chan?" Ruki tried to get her son's attention. "What's wrong? You're pale."  
"It's nothing." He muttered as Ken and Ruki stared at him. _"Why? Why do I feel so uneasy?"_ He thought to himself.  
"Osamu-chan…"

Meanwhile out in Tokyo Bay, there was a much more cheerful event going on. A large boat was sailing along with small wedding bells as a young newlywed couple had their wedding on the boat as it went under the Rainbow Bridge. However, the happy mood was quickly derailed when a large geyser of water shot up next to the large ship. The bride screamed as the water came down to reveal a large bipedal demon with two large octopus like arms on his back. This was MarinDevimon and he looked very similar to his namesake. The passengers on the boat were in a panic as nearby traffic stopped and looked out to the bay, including Hiroaki as he too was in the area.  
"What is that?" He questioned. He knew in a heartbeat it was a Digimon but not what it exactly was. "This is terrible…" He then quickly picked up his cell phone to pass word to Yamato and the rest of the Chosen.

"It's from Yamato-san." Daisuke said as he read off Yamato's message on his D-Terminal. At the same time, traffic in the city was going as normal but for drivers in a tunnel in East Ginza would soon have problems as a large swarm of bats soon filled the tunnel and caused multiple spin outs and crashes as the air was filled with the sick laughter of LadyDevimon who was standing on a tall light pole.  
"Ishida-san!" Chioka ran up to Hiroaki. "It looks like something appeared in East Ginza too!"  
"What?" MarinDevimon was in the bay, LadyDevimon was in East Ginza, and in Ginza, crowds of people were running from the third dark Digimon that was invading. The Digimon was a large red skeletal monster with a staff in his hand, almost as if he was the physical embodiment of the Red Death. SkullSatamon chuckled at the massed horde of people that ran away screaming from him.  
"Ishida-san, in Ginza too!" Chioka told Hiroaki as they were in the van and driving towards the Ginza area. Hiroaki picked up his phone and started to text the additional information to his son. "Who are you e-mailing?"

The boat in the bay returned to the docks fast and people were trying to get off of it in a hurry as MarinDevimon was approaching it. Takeru and Iori were running in a dead sprint right towards the bay with their Digimon.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Whirling Sincerity, SABMARIMON!"  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!" The two Digimon went straight after the titanic sea demon with Angemon engaging from the air and Sabmarimon from the sea. "Heaven's Knuckle!"  
"Submarine Attack!" Both their attacks did little and the giant octopus arms swatted them away.  
"He's strong…" Angemon groaned as he shook off the pain.

"Harpoon Vulcan!" MarinDevimon turned and took Ikkakumon's attack right to the face.  
"Ikkakumon!" Angemon cheered as the large walrus Digimon swam forward and glowed.  
"Ikkakumon, super-evolve! ZUDOMON!"  
"Go, Zudomon!" cried Jou as he ran up next to Takeru and Iori.  
"Hammer Spark!" Zudomon jumped out of the bay waters and dived down on the evil Digimon. MarinDevimon blocked the attack, made a strange noise then dived back into the waters.  
"After him, Angemon!" Takeru ordered.  
"Wait, Takeru-kun." Jou tried to stop him. "Let's rescue the people in the boat first." They looked to the crowd running off the ship and nodded.

In East Ginza, Angewomon and Aquilamon were flying fast towards LadyDevimon who stood on the light post.  
"I've been waiting." She taunted as she saw the two Digimon approaching. "Darkness Wave!" Bats that were on fire flew out and struck Aquilamon and sent him crashing into the ground.  
"Aquilamon!" Miyako cried out to him as he slid right up to Miyako and Hikari.  
"Stay away! It's dangerous!" He warned.  
"Aquilamon!" Angewomon also cried before LadyDevimon grabbed her hair and pulled hard.  
"Don't try to show off." She taunted once more.  
"What did you say?" History soon repeated itself as Angewomon slapped LadyDevimon in the face only for the witch to respond back with a slap as well before the two of them devolved into a slap fight.

While the angel and fallen angel were focused on each other, WereGarurumon, Garudamon and Lilimon soon approached the area of the fighting. LadyDevimon soon noticed this.  
"Bah, what a pain!" She then suddenly teleported away.  
"Where did she go?" Aquilamon questioned.  
"Daisuke and the others are over there!" Miyako cried out.  
"Let's hurry!" Hikari added.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Who the hell is that?" Daisuke questioned as Paildramon, MegaloGrowmon, MetalGreymon, Strikedramon and AtlurKabuterimon surrounded this skeleton Digimon that was terrorizing the area.  
"One of Archnemon's allies?" I questioned. The skeleton just chuckled as he looked around at the opponents that faced him. He charged at Paildramon and jumped up right in front of him before coming back down with his staff and striking him.  
"Paildramon!" Daisuke called out as the skeleton landed right by the clock tower at the Wako department store that read it was five minutes to noon. He then jumped back down and stuck at AtlurKabuterimon and knocked him down.  
"AtlurKabuterimon!" cried Koushiro. He continued to move fast before easily dealing with MegaloGrowmon and Strikedramon.  
"MegaloGrowmon!" "Strikedramon!" Both Ross and Osamu shouted for their Digimon partners. He then landed on MetalGreymon's arm and jumped up, upper cutting his jaw.  
"MetalGreymon!" Now, Taichi was the one to cry for his partner.

That skeleton just laughed as he positioned himself at the clock once more.  
"He's different from the Digimon we've seen so far." Daisuke muttered.  
"Different from the Digimon we've seen…" Osamu turned to him. "He's not one of Archnemon's allies? Then what…"  
"There's someone else other than Archnemon?" I asked.  
"It's possible. After all, he's amazingly strong. Too strong. But he's not a Dark Tower Digimon and isn't controlled by a Ring or Spiral either. What's going on here?"  
"I'll tell you what it is. That's a pure evil Digimon we're dealing with…" Ross growled.  
"He's right! You can't think!" Taichi shouted as he and Koushiro ran across the street to us. "If we hesitate, we lose!"  
"Okay…" Daisuke turned his attention back to the Digimon. "In that case, it's like Chimairamon and Chocomon again. Paildramon, evolve!"  
"Paildramon, ultimate-evolve! IMPERIALDRAMON!"

"Ultimate-Level…" The skeleton said. He jumped up and that yellow orb on his staff glowed. "Nail Bone!" It struck Imperialdramon who started to glow a dark purple aura.  
"Imperialdramon, what's wrong?" Daisuke called out.  
"Imperialdramon?" I called with him.  
"What just happened?" muttered Taichi.  
"It seems Imperialdramon's data was destroyed by the attack." Koushiro theorized.  
"What!?" All of us questioned. He then pulled out his laptop.  
"SkullSatamon… Perfect-Level Digimon… oh, no! He's like an energy vampire! He's leeching off the strength of our Digimon to make himself stronger!"  
"Imperialdramon…" Daisuke looked back at our Digimon. SkullSatamon just continued to chuckle before he saw everybody else coming over to our position.

"Daisuke!" Miyako waved as she, Hikari, Yamato and Mimi were being held in Garudamon's hands while Sora was riding on her head.  
"Daisuke-san!" Iori shouted as from the other end came Takeru, Jou and Iori who were on Ankylomon's back.  
"Here they come…" SkullSatamon gave out a glee of sick joy.  
"You guys!" Daisuke waved back.  
"Be careful!" I quickly warned. "He's different from our previous enemies!" The warning didn't do much good as SkullSatamon went after Miyako's group first and defeated most of them fast, causing WereGarurumon and Lilimon to devolve back to their Child forms after he hit them with his Nail Bone attack. Garudamon put the others down quickly before SkullSatamon reached her.  
"Nail Bone!" The attack hit and she devolved back to Piyomon, leaving Aquilamon and Angewomon as the only evolved Digimon to fight him.

"Imperialdramon! Please move!" Daisuke tried to get the large Digimon to move once more but nothing was getting through it seems. SkullSatamon then turned to Iori's group that was dropped rapidly, leaving Ankylomon and HolyAngemon in pain while he used his Nail Bone attack on Zudomon who became Gomamon once more. He then returned back to our group to deal with our Digimon that were getting back up.  
"Nail Bone!" The light from the staff flashed again and left Agumon, Tentomon and Guilmon on the ground once more.  
"Why did we turn back?" Tentomon questioned.  
"We still have the power we got from Qinglongmon…" Guilmon said as we all grouped up at the center of the large intersection.  
"What happened, everyone?" Taichi inquired loudly for an answer.  
"I have no idea, Taichi…" Agumon told him.

"Where did our enemy go?" Miyako questioned.  
"I don't know!" Iori exclaimed. We got our answer when we heard the laughter again and saw down the fourth part of the intersection and saw SkullSatamon floating with a bus full of children in his hands!  
"Let's see… what should I do with this bus?"  
"Damn it… at a time like this!" Taichi growled as we were in trouble.  
"Why did we turn back to Child-Level?" Agumon questioned.  
"Imperialdramon! Wake up, please!" Daisuke begged.  
"I've got it… he's an energy vampire and has just been draining off our Digimon… he targeted most of the stronger ones just to increase his own power… and now they're pretty low on energy at the moment." Koushiro informed. "We need to get them to restore their energy levels! They'll be in danger if we keep them here in the fighting for now so we need to send them back to the Digital World!"

"Well then, what should I do?" SkullSatamon got our attention once again. Koushiro opened his laptop and activated the program.  
"Digital Gate, open!" Miyako held up her D-3 and opened the gate.  
"Everybody, hurry up!" We turned and watched the Child Digimon walk towards Imperialdramon.  
"Guys, let's give the rest of the energy we've got and give it to Imperialdramon!" advised Agumon. Bright lights shined out of them and went towards Imperialdramon. He then glowed once that happened.  
"It's useless." SkullSatamon taunted.  
"Us too." HolyAngemon agreed and the rest of the Digimon did the same but Imperialdramon still didn't move.  
"What a pity…"  
"Please! Move!" I nearly screamed.  
"Imperialdramon!" Daisuke shouted to the heavens.

Suddenly, Imperialdramon's eyes lit up red before he glowed once again.  
"Imperialdramon, Mode Change! Fighter Mode!" We were taken aback by Fighter Mode. He now was bipedal with his cannon on his wrist and looking less like a dragon and more like a dragon-man.  
"Imperialdramon transformed…" I muttered in awe.  
"We leave the rest to you!" Agumon and the rest of the Child-Level Digimon returned back to the Digital World while remaining Digimon devolved back to their normal levels.  
"Do our part!" Tailmon said to Imperialdramon. He turned his attention to SkullSatamon.  
"Yeah, so what?" Imperialdramon just ignored his words and charged up his cannon.  
"Positron Laser!" The attack shot out and tore right through SkullSatamon, vaporizing half of his chest and all of his head before the rest of his body disintegrated a moment later. The bus then fell but was caught by Imperialdramon who gently put it back down on the ground.

"He's gone…" Miyako muttered.  
"We destroyed him." Iori said.  
"We destroyed our enemy…" I nodded, not feeling to great about it.  
"But if we hadn't, the kids in that bus…" Daisuke informed about why we had to do it.  
"Remember what I said when we fought Golemon." Ross spoke up. "Kill or be kill. That's what it comes down to with evil Digimon like him." We turned and looked at him before Daisuke, Osamu and myself nodded. Miyako and Iori still looked conflicted though, and Hikari and Takeru had some sad looks on their faces.  
"That time has finally come…" Hikari sadly stated.  
"Daisuke!" "Ken-chan!" V-mon and Wormmon came running for us.

"Not bad, Chosen Children." A dark voice stated behind the two of them. A dark purple portal opened from the street and rising out of it was a red-cloaked figure with glowing purple eyes, two horns in his head and black wings.  
"Who are you!?" Taichi demanded.  
"Ichijouji Osamu, will you come with me?" Our eyes widen when we heard that.  
"What? Why do you need Osamu?" Daisuke got in the way.  
"You have something in your body that we need."  
"What?" Osamu questioned. I then saw him rubbing the back of his neck.  
"Ichijouji Ken would work just as well, truth be told…" My blood ran cold as he turned his gaze towards me. I then felt something strange creeping on the back of my neck and ran my hand back there too. "Still, the pure one would be better. If you don't want more victims, come with me."

"Touch luck!" A box truck drove right in front of us and stopped, revealing Mummymon as the driver and Archnemon who was hanging on the back.  
"Who are you?" The cloaked monster questioned.  
"I don't need to tell you. Ichijouji Osamu, you're coming with us."  
"What?!" He exclaimed.  
"You don't care about these kids?" She opened up the truck door… and in it was a bunch of elementary kids; the same ones that the news reported!  
"So you're the kidnappers!?" Daisuke roared at them.  
"Oh, don't put it like that. They followed us of their own will."  
"Why…" Osamu muttered. "Why would they?"  
"Oh, I wonder… I'll tell you eventually if you come with us… or do you want your dear little brother to volunteer for you?" What the hell are they talking about with me and Osamu!?

Osamu growled before he started taking steps forward!  
"Onii-san!" "Osamu-chan!" "Ken!" "Don't go!" Wormmon, Monodramon, Ross and myself all cried for him to stop what he was doing.  
"Stay there." He ordered as he looked at Archnemon before climbing on board.  
"Are you opposing the forces of darkness?" The cloaked figure asked.  
"Of course not, why would I think of fighting the great Demon?" I'm guessing his name is De-mon. "I'm just completing my mission.  
"Osamu-chan!" "Onii-san!" Monodramon and I kept yelling as the door closed and we watched as the truck drove away.  
"Let's see what you can do…" Demon growled before sinking into the ground. I soon started to run after the truck with Monodramon and Wormmon beside me.  
"Onii-san! Onii-san! Onii-san!" I screamed before I tripped and fell forward onto the ground.

I looked up and watch the truck drive away and vanish with no chance of catching up with it…

* * *

Well, this isn't good, is it?

I think you can all finally figure out the one card I kept to my chest with this story, but I'll love to hear your ideas about what's going on... the stuff that isn't originaly from the show I mean.

Anyways, take care, and see you next time... much soon than before. It's good to be free from college for the semester.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank._**


	50. Dark Forces! Chase through Tokyo!

Well, not as long of a wait as last time, huh?

Shoutout to **azriafifi** for the fave and follow.

Shoutouts also to **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , **Super Saiyan 3 Odd** , {BTW, forgot to mention to you that I used to love watching Code Lyoko… even thought of doing a self-insert fanfic with that myself at one point. ;) } and **Whiteling** for the reviews. Thanks again.

Now then, let's get to some reveals, including one I hope to surprise you guys with... but I'm guessing you already figured it out.

* * *

 **Chapter 49: Dark Forces! Chase through Tokyo!**

 _Ginza District, Chuo Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 26th, 2002. 1207 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Wait!" I cried as I tried to reach out to the truck after I fell on the ground but could only watch as those two took Osamu and all those children away. To where? I have no idea… but Osamu's life is in more danger than ever before. I was about to break down and cry before I heard the sound of wheels screeching right next to me.  
"Ken! Get in! Hurry!" I turned to see Ross in the front seat of a '96 Toyota Land Cruiser with some of the others in the back. The SUV was being driven by a guy who looked similar to Jou. When I got in with Monodramon and Wormmon, I came to discover that why the driver looked similar was because he was Jou's older brother Shuu.

"Jou-senpai's older brother?" Daisuke questioned. I sat in the second row with Daisuke and Miyako while Iori, Takeru and Hikari were in the back row of the car.  
"Nice to meet you." He informed.  
"Shuu-senpai, why are you driving this? Didn't you have a New Beetle?" Miyako asked.  
"Yeah, but I had to get some work on it for today so I borrowed the Land Cruiser from my folks… talk about luck considering the Beetle wouldn't fit all of you." explained Shuu.  
"Osamu-chan…" I hear Monodramon mutter as he looked like he was about to break down like I nearly did.  
"Don't worry… we'll get him back. I promise you on that." Daisuke assured him.  
"Yeah. Just leave it to us." Hikari said. I leaned forward to Ross in the front seat.  
"What are you doing here, though? You don't have Guilmon with you so…" I whispered.  
"Look… I may not have Guilmon but Osamu is my Jogress partner. I left him to fend for himself yesterday and I'll be damned if I'm gonna do that again." He told me. I nodded. Hang on, Osamu… we're coming.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

"This is not what you promised!" I yelled at Archnemon as the truck picked up speed. All the kidnapped children moved towards the front of the truck while Archnemon stood next to me.  
"What isn't?" She must have rolled her eyes underneath those sunglasses of hers.  
"Didn't you promise to let everyone go?"  
"I don't remember any promise like that. Besides…" She turned her head to the other children. "Do you want to go home?" All of them stayed quiet while shaking their heads. They all looked… kind of blank to be honest. What did these sick freaks do to you guys?

"Why?" I sadly questioned before this short brown haired boy in a green jacket walked up to me.  
"You're Ichijouji Osamu-san, aren't you?"  
"Yes, but…" All of the kids then got small smiles on their faces, but they were anything but reassuring.  
"I knew it… I've always admired you." You wouldn't say that if you knew my sins. "You're great with studies… and probably sports too." Maybe, I haven't truly tried. "You have everything, don't you?" Yeah, but it comes at considerable cost… I nearly lost everything I should've cared for because of it. "Then this man told me he could make my dreams come true."  
"This man?"  
"I envy you." A man's voice said from somewhere in the crowd of kids. "Everyone looks up to you."  
"Who's that?" I demanded as I took a step back. I then heard a laugh.  
"It's me."

The man stood up to reveal himself as a pale looking man in a purple trench coat and screamed 'stay away at all costs'.  
"And who are you?" I asked as I tried to keep a brave face while I could practically feel that creep staring into my soul.  
"Oh, that's terrible. I thought you would remember me. Remember? I was at that office party your father brought you and your brother to. We already met." My memories flashed and then I remembered I did actually see him while Ken and I were at the party some months after our original Digimon adventures. We were just sitting alone doing nothing but… that man… he was eying us the entire time. I felt my blood run colder than it already was.  
"I remember… but…" I didn't say anything more before I felt the whole truck rocking.

The man had a dark look on his face as he turned to the front of the truck where the driver's cabin was and gave it a few kicks.  
"You idiot! Can't you drive properly!?" Wait? He was yelling that… at Mummymon… with no fear… could he be? Could he be the one that Archnemon and Mummymon take orders from? "What are you looking at!?"  
"U-um… even if you say that..." I heard Mummymon's voice through the walls of the truck. "There we go… sorry, there was a bunch of bats around!"  
"Hmm… seems like Demon is also after us." Archnemon said.  
"Do you think you can get away from the great Demon?" A woman's voice shouted from above and outside the truck before I heard a loud explosion and the truck rocked once more.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

We saw up ahead on the road a bright light blasting into the ground before multiple cars in front of us stopped forcing us to hit the brakes. We nearly wrecked into some one before Shuu pulled over.  
"What's going on, dagyaa?" Armadimon questioned.  
"It's LadyDevimon." Tailmon informed. I knew what we had to do in a heartbeat.  
"Please stop the car." I requested. Shuu then stopped before Tailmon hopped out.  
"Miyako, Hawkmon! I'd like to fight alone, but I can't. I used up most of my energy to evolve to Angewomon in the last fight. Can we Jogress-evolve?"  
"I don't mind, but…" Hawkmon looked to Miyako. "What do you say, Miyako-san?" Miyako looked very apprehensive to it all.  
"We're just going to stop her, right? Or… will it be like before?" We suddenly felt another rock of an explosion which meant LadyDevimon struck again.  
"Before there are any victims…" I looked to Miyako. "Hurry up!" I told her as I started to climb out.

A few moments later, Miyako followed me out of the car.  
"We'll go ahead then!" Patamon informed.  
"Be careful." advised Takeru as the SUV drove away.  
"I'm counting on you." I told Miyako. She can't afford to hesitate today. LadyDevimon will more than likely have to be killed, whether Miyako likes it or not.  
"Understood!" Hawkmon saluted. "Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!"  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress-Evolve! SILPHYMON!" Silphymon took to the skies fast as she headed after LadyDevimon. I silently pray that LadyDevimon is destroyed without Miyako looking; maybe that would make it easier for her.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

The truck rocked again as another blast hit nearby. The man still kept that twisted look on his face as he looked pretty calm about it all.  
"I'm Oikawa. Oikawa Yukio. I'm your dad's co-worker."  
"Co-worker…?" I questioned.  
"Well, why else did you think I would attended the work party if I didn't already work there. Of course… there's also this… 'These insects that surround you only leach off your true potential. It's a curse you must live with.'" My eyes widened as far as they could go along with all the air I had in my lungs leaving my body as I heard those words… the same ones from the e-mail!  
"You…" I felt the sweat starting to roll down my face from the horror. "It was you all along… you… you sent that e-mail…"

"You finally remember… Yes, I had my eye on you for quite some time."  
"What were you trying to do!?" I yelled out as I found my rage. How dare he use me for his own twisted games! How dare he make me into a monster to fuel whatever plans he had! There soon was another rocking of the truck which caused him a distraction.  
"Hey." Oikawa motioned Archnemon who actually nodded! He did command them! She opened up the back of the truck door and Oikawa walked over to her. I then saw this black devil like woman fighting Silphymon in the skies behind us.  
"He certainly is persistent on getting his hands on him, isn't he?" She said.  
"Indeed. It matters not though, let the rest of the Chosen Children deal with him." He looked back at me. "Oh, yes, these are my servants. You Chosen Children were looking for me, correct?" He chuckled. "You could say they're part of me, but I wouldn't want to spoil them, would I?"  
"Right." Archnemon bowed.  
"I don't understand… Oikawa Yukio, just who are you?" He gained a sick grin with that question I gave him.  
"Who knows?"

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

We watched as Mummymon's truck got on an on-ramp up ahead as Shuu kept closing the distance with it. I currently was on a cell phone with Dad trying to keep him up to date. There was no way the police was going to help with this, they've got better things to do than get killed by two crazed Digimon. Still, maybe they could at least slow them down.  
"Sorry, Dad, repeat that?" I yelled on the phone as Shuu was bobbing and weaving through the traffic.  
"I just said that the Antietam, the Chancellorsville and the Fredericksburg have all been deployed into the bay to try and find that sea devil."  
"Don't know if that's gonna help, but maybe it'll keep him from surfacing… right now we're heading north. You got to tell someone… like Takeru's mom… that Archnemon and Mummymon are behind the disappearing children!"  
"Well, I won't say Digimon, but I'll pass word on at least with their human disguises."  
"Okay, thanks." I hung up. "Still no sign of MarinDevimon." I told the others as Takeru was wondering where he vanished off to. They nodded.

We got on the same on-ramp and kept getting closer to the truck.  
"Alright! Almost there!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Still, those SkullSatamon and LadyDevimon…" Iori spoke up. "What is their relation to Archnemon and Mummymon?"  
"They're obviously not allies." Takeru observed.  
"Whatever they are… they're not making me any less worried about Onii-san's health." I could practically hear Ken tighten his grip on my seat.  
"Darkness Wave!"  
"Top Gun!" We looked up to see LadyDevimon and Silphymon's fight continuing. Up ahead, Mummymon was taking some erratic moves and forced Shuu to make some close calls.  
"Woo! Just like the movies!" Daisuke cheered as we all tightened our grips.  
"If something happens, they'll take my license away for sure!" Shuu feared.

After another few minutes and few more turns, we were less than a few car lengths behind the truck.  
"Alright! Almost there!" Takeru said with anticipation. We looked up ahead and saw a railroad crossing with the barriers down and the lights flashing which meant a train was coming. In short, they were about to be cornered. "A railroad crossing!"  
"Now we'll catch up!" Iori chimed in. To our utter shock, Mummymon seemed to floor it and drove right through the barrier and to the other side of the tracks just a few seconds before the train zoomed by, forcing us to stop. We all growled as the train came right on through, putting more distance between Osamu and ourselves. "Hurry up, hurry up…" I heard Iori mutter from the back. We were all on pins and needles at this point.  
"Calm down, dagyaa." Armadimon tried to cool us down. "All we can do is wait for the train to pass."  
"I know, but…"

It took a minute but then the train passed right through. Hopefully we can catch up. Still, even if we can't, I was able to jot down the license plate so we should eventually get a fix on them. Love to see the look on Mummymon's face when we find him.  
"Alright! Let's go!" Daisuke shouts as the lights keep going.  
"We still have a chance to catch up!" Ken kept on hoping. After a few seconds though, the light keeps flashing and the barriers that remain still don't rise. That was because of yet another train that went by. At this point, tempers were really boiling as our window was closing. When yet another train planned to cross, we all snapped.  
"ENOUGH ALREADY!" We screamed.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

Things calmed down soon enough as Mummymon claimed he shook off the others and apparently Demon's forces were all tied up. That same thing could be said about me as Archnemon tied my hands behind me before getting out of the truck once it came to a stop. Where? I had no idea. I tried to untie myself but the bindings were on tight. I struggled before staring back at Oikawa.  
"Why me?" I inquired. "Why did it have to be me!?" I was more referring to the e-mail and the making me of the Kaiser considering he was the mastermind behind everything.  
"When I met you at the party… it just came to me. That you had a Dark Seed planted in you."  
"Dark Seed?" I questioned. "What is that?" My mind flashed back to that desert and the pain… that… that must have been where I got it. That's why Oikawa and Demon want me. I ended up getting a Dark Seed when I first went to the Digital World.  
"It makes you smart, good at sports…" His grin got even wider. "Now… where have I heard that one before?" I don't know why he's saying that about me. I was already smart before the Digimon adventure I had with Ken as I-

Ken. Oh, no… Ken… smarts… good at sports… and all of that showed up right after… right after our adventures. My blood ran cold once more.  
"Figured it out have we? The odds of someone being a prodigy on your level in the same house alone was astronomical… but not with the Dark Seed."  
"That's why Archnemon said… what Demon said…"  
"Yes, your dear brother has a Dark Seed too… of course… his is slightly defective. He was supposed to follow the same path as you but he somehow managed to tap into its power and gain all of its benefits but not be corrupted by it… unlike yours." Oh, Ken. I pushed him out of the way to keep him from getting it but it didn't make a difference… and everything he has ever become now… was all mostly because of a certain item that these guys want. He then turned to look to the children. "I've told these kids about the Seed too. And they all said they wanted it." Bet you left off some important details about it though.

"So I want you to help me." He continued. "The Seed inside you has already sprouted long ago." He then dug into his pocket and pulled out some sort of bar code reader from the looks of it. "I'll take the sprouts and implant them in everyone. May I?" I doubt you'll give me a choice, you bastard. I suddenly regained my composure and smirked in defiance at him.  
"Is that a question? Or just an order?" He laughed as he walked towards me.  
"Oh, it won't hurt. It's called a seed, but it's just digital data." He then stopped right by me. "So… Let's scan them." I then felt his hand around my throat as my airway suddenly got blocked. He was choking me out before I felt a searing pain in my neck as he placed that scanner to it; like a red, hot poker was being stabbed into my neck. "Hey, now…" I felt and saw everything starting to go dark.  
"Monodramon… Ken…" I choked out before it all went dark with the last thing I could hear was his sick chuckling.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

A small tower on top of a building suddenly collapsed as LadyDevimon and Silphymon's fight took them further and further north as the sun went down. By now it was mostly night in the city and onlookers were staring up to the skies to watch the two Digimon ladies duel. Bats and Top Guns were falling all over the place as both of them refused to give the other an inch.  
"Duel Sonic!" LadyDevimon dodged another attack that was delivered. Meanwhile, a dark mist was floating through the waterways, as MarinDevimon was slowly making his way deeper into the city. Back in a quiet area away from the fighting, Oikawa and his cronies were hard at work with their plan.  
"Okay, who's next?" Osamu heard as he slowly began to regain a bit of consciousness.  
"It's me. Please." A girl stepped forward. Osamu tried to say something but just couldn't speak.  
 _"_ _Don't do it, everyone… don't be fooled!"_ He tried to scream at them but could only do it in his mind. _"Don't become like me!"_ He then collapsed once again.

"Can't you hear it?" Mummymon said as he laid on the steering wheel.  
"Hmm… Demon!?" Archnemon jumped at alert as Mummymon leaned back and put his arms behind his head.  
"No, the stars' whispers."  
"Huh?" She questioned.  
"This is what the stars are telling me. That us being here together is destiny." Archnemon scoffs and rolls her eyes away.  
"I can't hear anything."  
"Come on, Archnemon… Let's accept our destiny!" He wrapped his arms around her.  
"No way!" She proceeded to elbow him in the gut.  
"Why? There's no one more suitable for you than me in the whole world!"  
"Idiots who are intoxicated by stars aren't my type!" The two devolved into another pointless bickering.  
"Then what is your type of man? Tell me! I'll work hard to become like that!"  
"You don't have to bother." She turned away from him.  
"Archnemon!" The two of them didn't notice MarinDevimon's dark tendrils slowly approaching them.

At a nearby amusement park, the troubles of city were at the back of park goers minds as they were enjoying the time there.  
"What? You scared, Atsumari?" A girl teased her boyfriend as they were going through the high speeds of the roller coaster.  
"No… it's that! That!" He pointed. She turned and they saw in the distance MarinDevimon slowly encroaching deeper into the city.  
"What's that!?" Due to the approach of MarinDevimon, Oikawa's group began to move once more as the large sea demon tried to reach them.  
"You're quite popular. All sorts of people want you." The gaunt man chuckled as Osamu growled once more.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We kept on driving in a hopeless attempt to find Archnemon and her prisoners. We were on long road before people started to run our way and an officer got in front of us.  
"Stop, stop! Turn around. You can't go any further."  
"Is it under construction?" Shuu questioned. I have a feeling construction wouldn't cause a panic like this. The policeman himself really couldn't give us an answer.  
"Anyways, we're chasing a truck." Daisuke explained.  
"Have you seen it? It's like this." Iori held up a crude drawing of a box truck but at least it had the license number on it.  
"We don't have the time for that!" The officer shouted. As by sheer luck, a box truck drove right past us… and it was being driven by Mummymon!  
"It's them! Go, go, go!" Ken was practically screaming at Shuu.

"Okay!" He tried to back up… only to find a line of cars behind us. "We're stuck…" He moaned.  
"No!" Iori looked at the mirror before gasping at the dark shadow ahead.  
"That's…" I tried to speak.  
"It's MarinDevimon!" He finished for me.  
"Okay, Digimon are rested enough, we'll go after the truck." Daisuke informed. "Let's go, V-mon." He hopped out of the car. "Digimental Up!"  
"V-mon, Armor-Evolve! Storm of Friendship, LIGHDRAMON!"  
"We're going too!" Ken shouted as both he and Ross got out. "Digimental Up!"  
"Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!" Daisuke climbed onto Lighdramon while Ken, Ross and Monodramon got on Tetermon.  
"Move out!" Ross ordered and they all went away.

"We'll take care of MarinDevimon." I turned to Iori. His mood shifted to one of hesitation.  
"Are we going to kill him? I… something like that…" The evil Digimon made a loud roar which drew his attention back to him as he destroyed a building.  
"Our house!" A woman shouted.  
"Our loan!" Her husband said. This is not good, we need to stop him right now. And killing him is probably the only way. Come on, Iori… We watched as he soon crushed a car and then took down some power lines.  
"Okay." Iori nodded. Good to hear!  
"Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!"  
"Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!"  
"Ankylomon!" "Angemon!" "Jogress Evolve! SHAKKOUMON!"

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

Miyako and I ran towards a nearby skyscraper and tried to get on one of the highest floors so we could be able to see the battle between LadyDevimon and Silphymon in the skies. We could see plenty of other people that also were watching the fight.  
"Can you see them?" asked Miyako as I tried to look over people's shoulders. I kneeled down slightly to get a better view before I saw a flash.  
"It flashed!" I told her.  
"Where?" I couldn't tell her exactly but then I saw another one.  
"Again!"  
"Top Gun!"  
"Darkness Wave!" We could hear the faint sounds of their attacks even from here. Then I saw one more flash and Silphymon's cries of pain before I caught something falling. Oh, no, she's going down!

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

It looked like MarinDevimon was about to upchuck something but Shakkoumon was going to put a stop to that.  
"Ruling Spirit!" One of those large disks struck the devil in the neck and he turned his attention right to the holy golem. "Your opponent is over here!" He floated over. MarinDevimon unleashed a torrent of flames that was black and yellow. The attack was surprisingly strong enough to knock him over and caused him to hit some power lines that coated the entire area in darkness. Shuu hit the brakes as we lost most of the lights.  
"Shakkoumon!" Iori cried out.  
"Hang in there!" I shouted. "You're the only one who can stop MarinDevimon!" He got back up and started to clash with his hands.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

For a little open aired shopping area, things were surprisingly quiet until Silphymon crashed hard into the ground. She left a small crater and grunted in pain as some teenagers started to walk over to her.  
"She's cosplaying." One teen wearing a green jacket said.  
"You okay?" A guy wearing a beanie asked as he held out his hand.  
"I'm fine…" She grunted. "Anyway, get out of here!"  
"Huh?" They questioned as LadyDevimon landed right behind them. The teen with the green jacket looked over and saw her before blushing.  
"That girl who's cosplaying is pretty hot!" His buddy turned and looked as well.  
"It's dangerous! Please get out of here!" pleaded Silphymon.  
"Dangerous…? What do you mean?" The beanie wearing guy questioned before LadyDevimon wrapped her arm around his neck and started to choke him.  
"You'll be a shield for me." She explained as he struggled. "Come on, use the best attack you have!" She taunted Silphymon.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Lighdramon and Tetermon kept up the chase as we continued to get close to the truck before I noticed one of the signs we just dashed pass.  
"Huh? This way is…"  
"What?" Monodramon called out as Tetermon flew next to me.  
"It's Hikarigaoka!" I informed.  
"Wait, are you serious?" Ken questioned.  
"Hikarigaoka is where us original Chosen Children met the Digimon for the first time. It was where Parrotmon and Greymon clashed with Hikari and Taichi stuck in the middle of it with the rest of us watching on." Ross gave Monodramon a quick history lesson.  
"There's supposed to be a gate to the Digital World there." I added.  
"Could it be… Archnemon and the others also know about it?" Ken wondered.  
"Who knows… but we can't let them do whatever it is they've got planned! Move it!" I ordered as the Digimon picked up speed.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

I soon came to discover that we were on our way to Hikarigaoka. If I remember correctly, Ken mentioned that place was significant to the rest of the older Chosen Children.  
"Hikarigaoka, huh? Isn't it an ironic name?" Oikawa said. "You don't understand what I mean? Instead of 'Hikari'… Yamigaoka?" Oh, I see. Hikari means light while yami means darkness. He thinks he's being clever with a name change. "No, it doesn't sound right. I got it! What about Ankokugaoka?" He then laughed at his joke. Ankoku also means darkness. "No, Darkgaoka?" He asked as I just kept glaring at him. "Those eyes… such a scornful look. You all should learn from him." He looked to the children who he just finished infecting with my curse. "This is how the elite looks down on ordinary people." He then started to laugh harder than he had before. I turned away before looking back at the kids who all were just staring at me with small grins. For a second… I couldn't see them, but instead just copies of the Kaiser.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

We soon arrived in the area where Silphymon crashed and found her struck in the chest by LadyDevimon and she fell over on her back. Hikari and I then could see that LadyDevimon took some teen and was holding him hostage; clearly as some sort of sick human shield. She walked over and kicked her in the head while she was on the ground.  
"You can fight back, you know!" She laughed before flipping her on her stomach. "If you don't care about his life, that is." How… how could any Digimon just be cruel like this?  
"Let me go, please!" The guy choked out. "I don't want to die!" Silphymon got back up on a knee.  
"You won't? Then it's about time to finish you off." I've got to do something or they're both goners! I then found a skateboard that must have belonged to one of the teens that was around and picked it up. "Poison…"

I screamed out as I charged her and struck her in the leg with the skateboard. It caused her to let go of her hostage who immediately took off running.  
"Miyako-san!?" Hikari was clearly surprised with what I just did.  
"Coward!" I shouted at LadyDevimon. "You're the most cowardly Digimon I've ever seen! The worst!"  
"Miyako-san, don't be reckless!"  
"Cowardly?" The devil woman smirked at me. "That's how I live. I'm also heartless and cruel." She raised up her claw hand and her blood red nails glimmered. "Even women and children get no mercy from me!" She then charged right at me. "Die!"  
"Miyako-san!" Hikari screamed for me as I watched my whole life flash before my eyes. I closed my eyes and held the skateboard to my chest as a sort of shield as I awaited my end.

But nothing came. I didn't feel anything. I then opened my eyes to see that LadyDevimon had a different look on her face, one of pain. I then looked down… and saw a large hole had been blown out of her chest with Silphymon behind her who looked like she used her Top Gun attack. LadyDevimon tried to speak but she could only make gargled noises before the light left her eyes and she fell over and laid on the ground… dead. She then disintegrated into data. I suddenly felt cold as I dropped the skateboard with what we just did.

"I had to destroy her." Silphymon explained. "Please understand."  
"We destroyed her…" I muttered. "We destroyed… a Digimon…" I looked over and saw the teen LadyDevimon being embraced by his friend who were relieved to be alive.  
"You're the one who saved him Miyako-san." Hikari walked up next to me.  
 _"_ _You have to realize that not all Digimon are good, some are just pure evil. You can't free them from a dark force, you can't reason with them; their sole purpose is to see you dead. You'll have to make the hard and unfortunate choice."_ I remembered the words Ross told Iori and I that day we fought Golemon at the dam as well as earlier. I now finally understood. It wasn't easy to admit it, but it was something we just had to do in order to save others. I sucked up my tears and tightened my fists before nodding.  
"Come on, let's go find Osamu-san." I told Hikari.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

As MarinDevimon and Shakkoumon fought, they ended up getting closer and closer to a large building that Shuu drove nearby. We could see multiple people trying to get out. Many of them were injured or in wheelchairs which meant this place was only one thing.  
"A hospital?" Takeru observed.  
"This is bad…" Shuu muttered. "There may still be patients inside who can't be moved."  
"Shakkoumon!" I put my head out the window. "Please stay away from here!" It didn't look like he could as MarinDevimon was pushing him further back towards the hospital. "What do we do…" I asked. "What should we do?"  
"In any case, let's do whatever we can." Shuu turned off the car and unbuckled his seatbelt. "Come on."

We soon were in the building and giving a hand. The fighting was so close now as we helped this girl a year or two younger than me in a wheelchair go down the stairs. Shuu himself was holding a kid with leukemia around his neck. We could see right outside the window Shakkoumon being pushed by MarinDevimon only meters away from where we were. Shuu chuckled as we got the girl down a flight of stairs.  
"I gave up studying medicine and now I'm doing this."  
"Doctors aren't the only ones who can save lives." Takeru said. That struck a chord with me as I remembered Father.  
 _"_ _My father, a police officer, also saved lives…"_ I thought to myself as we kept moving. Our attention was quickly directed to the dark tendril that just shattered the window right by us and was now less than five meters from us!  
"Shakkoumon!" I cried out.  
"Harmonious Spirit!" Within a moment, there was a loud explosion and the tendril disintegrated… which meant only one thing: Shakkoumon killed MarinDevimon.

I felt my whole body just stop as my blood chilled with the actions we just did.  
"We destroyed him…" I was just about to break down. "In the end, we destroyed our enemy…" I couldn't believe that we just did that. I know what Ross said before about sometimes it had to be done… but I just felt so… wrong.  
"It should be fine now." Shuu told a doctor who came back up and handed the child over.  
"Thanks. You were a big help." He said.  
"Okay, let's hurry then." Shuu told us.  
"Thank you." The girl gave me a smile.  
"Iori-kun, let's go." Takeru started to walk ahead.  
"Y-yes." I said. I turned back and looked at the girl once more who waved at me. _"Father… was this the right way?"_ I questioned myself as we left to rejoin the chase for Osamu.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Mummymon kept driving the truck as best as he could as he could see Lighdramon and Tetermon in his mirrors the closer they got to Hikarigaoka.  
"Damn, how persistent!" He growled.  
"Lighdramon, go for it!" Daisuke ordered.  
"Yeah." He soon picked up more speed and then jumped onto the roof of the truck while Tetermon soon landed as well.  
"I'll shake you off!" Mummymon shouted as the truck bounced back and forth on the streets as he tried to throw them all off.  
"Hang on tight, you guys!" Tetermon advised.  
"They just don't give up." muttered Archnemon. Mummymon suddenly made a panicked cry as he stared forward.

That was because Demon had just appeared right ahead of the truck…

* * *

Yep, that card I had on my chest was in fact Ken too possessed a Dark Seed but as Oikawa stated, he somehow bent it to his will and became a prodigy in his own right. Kinda like book Faramir with Sauron's Ring, by that I mean not falling to it's temptations like Boromir and so many others did.

Also, this thought just occurred but wouldn't it be crazy if that little girl in the hospital later somehow ended up being Iori's wife in the future? Hey, coincidences are common place in this universe!

Anyways, I've rambled on long enough so see you guys next time. But I leave you with one last thing. Go to YouTube and search 'The Phantom of the Opera - Vinyl LP version' and it's music video with Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley for the most 80s music video ever. If you're a fan of the show... man, now I wish they did more of the rock opera idea it was originally supposed to be!

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	51. Commander of Evil! Demon!

Hello, here's a new chapter everyone.

Shoutout to **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** , and **DigimonAT0318** for the reviews.

Got nothing much to say now though there is one thing... we lost a mighty warrior today. RIP Peter Mayhew, our favorite Wookiee.

Anyways, lets keep going.

* * *

 **Chapter 50: Commander of Evil! Demon!**

 _Hikarigaoka District, Nerima Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 26th, 2002. 2042 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We all stayed on the roof of the truck as it came to a complete stop just before it ended up plowing through Demon. Truth be told, I wish Mummymon floored it, but who knows what that could've done and Osamu and the kids safety and well-being is our number one priority. Right now, the truck just continued to remain idle with the engine running while Demon just stared into the driver's seat; not paying any attention to us which was fine by me. He soon chuckled which I swear, I could feel that chill in my bones. This guy was probably the worst guy we've ever faced… well, Ken and I perhaps. I think Ross would put this guy on par with the Dark Masters perhaps.

"I've come for the Dark Seed." He finally spoke as his eyes narrowed, still looking at the truck's cabin.  
"This guy really makes me nervous…" Ken whispered to me.  
"Yeah, same here man." I told him.  
"First time you stare down the devil is the hardest." Ross tried to give us some sort of words of wisdom.  
"Still can't believe he got all the way here though…" I said before the back of the truck opened up and then we saw a pale man in a purple trench coat hop out and come around front until he stopped right next to the doors of the truck's cabin.  
"Demon himself welcoming us is a rare sight." This guy's voice is kind of unnerving as well. "What happened to the others? Did those brats get them?" Wow… this guy isn't showing any fear what so ever in the face of this Digimon. Guess the others took care of the rest of Demon's creeps if he's here… but where are they now… we could certainly use their help.  
"I would choose my words carefully if I were you." Demon's gaze zeroed in on that man.

"Daisuke, what's the Dark Seed?" V-mon whispered as we ducked down as low as we could on the truck. V-mon and Wormmon had returned to their normal forms.  
"No idea." I explained.  
"Whatever it is… it's clearly related to Osamu-chan if that's what Demon wants." Wormmon said. Made sense. Demon wanted him earlier so I'm guessing that Dark Seed is something inside him.  
"Anyway, we need to find a way to rescue Onii-san and the others." informed Ken.  
"You guys formulate that. I'll contact the others." Ross then pulled out his D-Terminal and started typing.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

We were driving away from the hospital with Shuu when my D-Terminal went off in my hands. I opened up and checked to see who had sent it.  
"It's from Ross-san." I told Iori. "Demon… in Hikarigaoka!?" I nearly dropped the D-Terminal when I read that. "Sorry, but we need to hurry to Hikarigaoka!" I insisted to Shuu.  
"Got it. I'm very familiar with Hikarigaoka." Oh, yeah, forgot for a second that Shuu lived with Jou while he was at Hikarigaoka that night of our first Digimon encounter. He soon hit the gas and we made our way quick to Hikarigaoka.  
"Another battle will begin…" Iori looked guilty, like he was still torn up about what we did earlier in the night.

"Will you be okay?" I asked.  
"We have no choice, right?"  
"You don't have to force yourself. If it comes down to giving the order, I'll easily make it for you in your stead, Iori. You shouldn't think of it as an obligation."  
"Yes, I know. That is what I have decided myself."  
"It's alright, Iori! Just leave it to me!" Armadimon assured him.  
"Yeah, we're with you!" chimed in Patamon.  
"Right." Iori nodded but he still looked unready to do what probably will need to be done again. "Thanks." Shuu hit the gas even more as we moved way past the speed limit on our way to Hikarigaoka.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

Miyako and I were riding Aquilamon high in the sky as we were trying to find the truck that Archnemon was keeping Osamu and the other children. We soon got a message from Ross on the D-Terminal which informed that Demon had appeared in Hikarigaoka. I asked Miyako and Aquilamon to turn direction towards there which they did and now we were on our way there.  
"Hikarigaoka… where I first arrive after entering Vamdemon's gate." Tailmon informed.  
"And where I first found a Digiegg." I added. "Why Hikarigaoka?" I questioned as I knew that it was one of the last places in this city that needed yet another Digimon encounter. "Is something going to happen there again?" Miyako looked at me for a moment before looking forward once again.  
"Are you okay, Aquilamon? Aren't you tired?"  
"I'm fine, but… what about you, Miyako-san?"  
"Me? I'm okay now!" Is she really? She just watched her partner kill their first Digimon.  
 _"_ _Yeah… now I'm okay."_ Miyako thought to herself. "Let's hurry!" She ordered as Aquilamon kicked up his wings.

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

"Don't make this harder and just hand it over. Otherwise, I'll just take it by force!" Demon told the man as Ross tapped us and nodded that he sent out the message to the others. Now we just got to hope nothing gets violent for a few more minutes until they arrive.  
"Now, don't be so impatient, Demon." The man held his arms up as if to try to cool him down, but I get the feeling this Digimon is anything but calm. He then turned his head back towards the rear of the truck. "If you want it that badly, take it." He snapped his finger and Archnemon got out of the truck and headed to the back. This was a surprise. We were already surprised to see that man in the truck along with Archnemon and Mummymon… but with that… it was clear that somehow he actually commanded them! How can a human like him control those two sadistic, homicidal monsters? Archnemon climbed back on board and soon pulled out Osamu. Okay, well, at least he's still alive and looks unhurt; but he currently had a dark look on his face and had his hands tied up behind his back.

 _"_ _Now that I've implanted the Dark Seed into the kids, I don't need Ichijouji Osamu. Do as you please with him."_ Oikawa thought to himself. Archnemon pushed Osamu forward as he was being led towards Demon like a lamb for slaughter. What did they want with him? Did they already get it? Is that why they're handing him over? Well… we weren't going to let them have that chance!  
"V-mon Head!" V-mon jumped down and struck Archnemon in the head.  
"Beat Knuckle!" Monodramon came down right after him and hit her too right in the stomach while she was stunned.  
"Sticky Net!" Wormmon's attack finally tied her up as the rest of us went for Osamu which Ross got to first and pushed him out of the way.  
"This is gonna cost you a crate load of money that you don't have!" Ross said as he helped untie Osamu.  
"First of all, thanks for the rescue, and two, what?"  
"Sorry, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces Two reference; I couldn't resist."

"Guys, now!" Daisuke ordered as we all jumped for a safer location.  
"V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" "Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!"  
"Now, hand over the Dark Seed!" Demon floated off the ground and headed right for us. All three of our Digimon jumped forward to stop him; only for him to stop and hold up his hands that shot out purple flames that blew all three of them away. Monodramon crashed into the street, XV-mon hit the side of the truck and Stingmon went into the bushes.  
"Osamu-san, leave this to Ken and me. Go with Ross-san and get out of here!" Daisuke told him.  
"No, I won't. Those children…" We all looked over to truck and saw the kids in the back that looked like they had been quite rocked by XV-mon's crash. "Because of me…" As soon as Osamu said that, that man got a glare on his face.  
"Oh, yes… I'll take the other children as well." Demon said as he turned back to the man.

The man's angry look soon turned into one of a sly grin once again.  
"Can't let you do that." On cue, Mummymon jumped out and cocked his rifle before aiming while Archnemon turned into her true self to assist him.  
"Insects!" Demon shouted as he dashed right towards them; easily knocking them out of the fight. This guy was strong… really strong. I looked over to Daisuke and we both nodded.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON! Desperado Blaster!" Paildramon opened fire on Demon who just stood there in the street before he was riddled with shots and engulfed in a cloud of smoke.  
"Did we get him?" I asked aloud as I couldn't see anything. To our horror, when the some cleared, Demon was now towering over us as he was much bigger; perhaps as tall as Shakkoumon. All he did was then give out a sinister chuckled as he looked down on us.

"Harmonious Spirit!" A bright beam of light struck him in the back as Shakkoumon slowly floated from the other side of the street. Demon growled as Shakkoumon opened up his hands and looked like he was inviting him to fight him. A car hit the brakes hard not too far away from Shakkoumon and Takeru and Iori got out of it with Shuu.  
"We must defeat that Digimon no matter what!" declared Iori.  
"Go for it!" Takeru cheered on Shakkoumon.  
"Dual Sonic!" Silphymon's attack ran out of the night sky and a bright purple light shaped like her came screaming down and blindsided Demon. He growled out in pain once more as he turned his head and looked up to her. We could see Miyako and Hikari had been left on the roof of a nearby building overlooking the street.  
"Good luck, Silphymon!" Miyako cried out. Meanwhile, Strikedramon rejoined us and looked ready to fight again but Osamu held up his hand.  
"Hang on… you're no good right now in your current form. Just stay here and protect us." Osamu advised.  
"Sure could use Guilmon right now…" I heard Ross mutter to himself. "Bad time for me to have a lapse in judgment."

"Fools…" Demon's eyes narrowed. "Let me show you a new level of power." He held up his hands once more as he channeled a fireball in them. "Flame Inferno!" A large wall of fire scorched down the street right towards Paildramon. Once again, Daisuke and I were on the same wavelength about what to do next.  
"Paildramon, ultimate-evolve! IMPERIALDRAMON!" The wave of fire split into three directions and overwhelmed the Digimon fast. Imperialdramon was handling it okay, but Shakkoumon had been knocked onto the ground and Silphymon was being chased through the air by a trail of fire. Imperialdramon charged through the flames and tackled Demon while Shakkoumon sucked up the flames and expelled them like he was a tea kettle blowing steam.  
"Positron Laser!" Imperialdramon fired his cannon at point-blank range and sent Demon flying into the air.  
"Harmonious Spirit!" Shakkoumon joined in with his attack.  
"Top Gun!" All three of their attacks collided with the Dark Digimon. Surly, that had to do something.  
"Did we get him this time?" Daisuke optimistically questioned.

Our answer came when the smoke cleared and Demon didn't look like he suffered a scratch as he laughed once again.  
"Is this the level of your best attacks?"  
"No way…" Daisuke exasperated.  
"Why… why!?" Iori loudly cried.  
"I can't believe all three together couldn't beat him!" Miyako shouted from the roof.  
"It's as I feared… he's one damn powerful Ultimate-Level Digimon." Ross expressed his fear. If that's honestly the case… we're in some serious trouble.

 _Ichijouji Residence, Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _December 26th, 2002. 2103 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At around the same time, Kaito and Ruki were watching the news but both were feeling very nervous about everything that was going on of late, especially since both their sons hadn't arrived home yet.  
"Today, since this afternoon and until now, in Ginza, Takeshiba, Ikebukuro and Nerima, there has been a monster scare, causing widespread panic…" The news anchor reported.  
 _"_ _What in the world is going on?"_ Kaito thought to himself as he continued to watch.  
"Dear!" Ruki spoke up. "Dear, we should call the police!"  
"Don't worry. The monsters are around Nerima. There's no reason for Ken or Osamu to be there."  
"But what if they've been kidnapped?" Fear for her boys gripped her. "What if they were taken away like all those other kids?"  
"Calm down. Ken and Osamu are alive and fine. I'm sure of it. I'm sure they're at a friend's place and can't come home because the trains stopped working." That wasn't truly helping her nerves.  
"But I told them to call if either of them were going to be late…" She buried her hands in her face and started to cry.  
 _"_ _Boys… what are you up to? Are you involved in all this?"_ Kaito continued to think while trying to support Ruki.

 _Hikarigaoka District, Nerima Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 26th, 2002. 2104 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"So? Will you come with me, Ichijouji Osamu?" Demon gave out his threatening request once again. Osamu took a step forward before Ken grabbed him.  
"You can't go! Don't do it, Onii-san!" Demon merely chuckled.  
"Let me change your mind, then." He held out his hand and that fireball ignited in it… and was pointed right towards an apartment complex! He was now threating to destroy it and kill so many people if Osamu didn't come with him!  
"Stop!" I screamed out. He ignored me and launched his stream of fire right at the building.  
"Imperialdramon, Mode Change! Fighter Mode!" Imperialdramon jumped up and activated a shield to deflect the vast inferno that was being sent towards the building.  
"That's…" I muttered as I recognized the shield. "The light that surrounded us when we flew around the world…"  
"This is as far as you get!" Imperialdramon declared. He then aimed his arm and turned the shield inward, sending the whole attack right back to its sender. Demon kept it back from engulfing him.  
"What child's play." He taunted.

"It won't last long!" Imperialdramon worried as he kept trying to put more steam into the shield. "What should we do, Daisuke, Ken?"  
"Even if you ask me…" I said as I couldn't think of anything. The rest of the others rejoined with us. The shield cracked a bit but the fire was sucked up by Shakkoumon who expelled it once again.  
"You obstinate fools!" shouted Demon.  
"Damn it! Now what!?" I questioned.  
"Why…" Takeru growled. "Why did you appear? Why can't you leave us be? If you're part of the darkness, stay in the world of darkness! Don't come out as you please!"  
"He's a villain, Takeru-kun." Ross told him. "His only desire is to see darkness engulf everything."

"It may be too late, but…" Iori turned to us as it looked like he may have come up with an idea. "Can't we send him back to the Digital World somehow?"  
"Right!" Miyako agreed immediately. "I think Shuu-san has a laptop in the car! If we open the gate with it…" Demon interrupted as he gave out a sick laugh.  
"That won't be necessary!" We looked up at him and he held his hands up while still keeping the shield and fire away from him. Above him, a purple mist formed before a foreign land appeared in it… it was the Digital World. "See, I opened the gate just like you desired."  
"He can open the gate on his own…" muttered Miyako.  
"How do you think we entered this world in the first place? Chasing me back to the Digital World is meaningless! I can appear at any time using my own will, fools."

Miyako soon fell to her knees in despair with this sudden revelation.  
"It's no use… we can't win."  
"Hey, what are you talking about?" I shouted at her. "We can't give up! There has to be a way we can beat him!"  
"Please stop trying to console us." Iori spoke up.  
"What? You too, Iori?" Ross questioned. "Don't you dare quit on us now!"  
"But it's true, isn't it?" He actually had tears building in his eyes. "Even Imperialdramon, Silphymon and Shakkoumon fighting together can't beat him. Sending him back to the Digital World is useless. What other way is there? It's the end!"  
"We can't say that, Iori-kun! There has to be a way! There just has too!" insisted Ken.

"I got it…" Takeru said as he continued to lock his eyes towards Demon. "A place where he can't return from… Neither the Real nor Digital World… If we could find a place like that…" Hikari gasped.  
"The Dark World."  
"That's it! It's supposed to be different world beyond the Digital World. If we lock him up there, I don't think he'll be able to get out easily."  
"Hold on!" Ross stepped up to Takeru. "You want to send him to Digimon Cthulhu?"  
"It's probably our only chance, Ross-san!"  
"Maybe… but I fear we'd create an unholy alliance somewhere down the road…" Ross went quiet for a moment. "You're right, best chance we've got considering we don't have the strength to kill Satan over there."

"Even then… how do we open a gate to the Dark World?" Miyako asked as she still was on her knees. "Can we even do something like that!?"  
"Well…" Hikari hesitated. "Right… back then, being take there had nothing to do with my own will."  
"No one wanted a gate to open." chimed Takeru.  
"I knew it… it's impossible." Iori admitted defeat. Demon chuckled once more.  
"As I said, just give me the Dark Seed. If you do that, I promise to return to the Digital World and never appear in your world again."  
"I doubt that!" Ken shouted at Demon before turning to us. "There's no way we're handing Onii-san over to him and I'm sure he wouldn't keep that promise. Whatever the Dark Seed is that he wants, it won't be good for either world." Ross and I nodded with him.

"I… I…" Osamu finally spoke up again after being quiet for a bit. "I opened a gate with my Digivice once before. To that world." All of us except Ross and Ken expressed shock upon hearing that. "Oikawa said there's a gate point in Hikarigaoka. If that's true, this D-3 may be able to open the dark gate!" He held it up and pointed it towards Demon before it started to shine purple. We soon heard the sounds of waves and saw a black hole in the center of the gate Demon opened up that was getting bigger.  
"That's…!" Takeru exclaimed. The hole got bigger and bigger as we saw Osamu starting to sweat. He then screamed out like he was in pain.

Hikari immediately ran over to him and grabbed his arm.  
"Hang in there, Ichijouji-san! Don't give in!" She tried to support him. We then saw in the black void dark waves starting to move. "Waves…"  
"It may work!" Takeru cried. "Hang in there, Ichijouji-san!" Now Takeru ran over to support him as Osamu continued to grunt out in pain.  
"Ichijouji Osamu… Ichijouji-san is fighting his fear of darkness…" Iori observed.  
"He's doing all he can to open the dark gate somehow…" Miyako looked up and got off her knees.  
"And yet, I…" Iori growled as he closed his eyes.  
"Miyako, you idiot!" She did the same. They both ran over and placed their hands on Osamu's arm as well. "I'm scared… is this the fear Osamu-san has been fighting against?"  
"Hang in there… please hang in there, Ichijouji-san!"

I soon ran over and placed my hands on Osamu's arm. They really weren't kidding about the fear.  
"Come on, Osamu-san… you can do it! We're all counting on you and we know you can do it!" I gave my words of encouragement as Ross joined in.  
"You're much stronger than you think, Osamu… you can do this, but you've got to have belief in yourself that you can do it and fight your fears that are holding you back!"  
"That's right, Onii-san!" Ken was the last to place his hands in lock. "Don't give up! You're not your old self anymore. You're not the Digimon Kaiser! You're my brother who stood up for me when I thought I was all alone! You were there for me through so much and now it's time I repay that by being here for you, right now! You've been troubled, suffered, and finally broke free of the power of darkness, I saw that first hand. You've atoned for what you did! You have nothing more to fear anymore!" Wow… I never knew Ken could give such a speech. Osamu's eyes opened wide after Ken said that.

 _"_ _This warmth… is it Ken-kun's heart?"_ Hikari thought.  
 _"_ _Osamu-san's fear is disappearing…"_ noticed Miyako.  
"Please, Onii-san… Believe in yourself like I believe in you! Like we all believe in you! You can't lose to the power of darkness! We're here for you! Send Demon back to the Dark World!" The D-3 glowed even brighter now. Suddenly that black hole then faded away and was replaced by a colorless world. That must be it! He did it!  
"That's… Dagomon's Ocean…" Demon noticed.  
"Now! Positron Laser!" "Top Gun!" "Harmonious Spirit!" Imperialdramon fired his cannon while Shakkoumon and Silphymon sent out their attacks which hit the shield and pushed Demon straight back into the gate. All he did however was just chuckle in a sinister tone.  
"Insolent fools, you will come to regret this!" The laughed manically as the gate closed on him, trapping him in the Dark World!

 _P.O.V – Osamu Ichijouji_

We gave out a collective sigh of relief before we cheered at what we did. Our Digimon all devolved and jumped right back towards us. I held Monodramon in my arms before I remembered those words that Pedro said yesterday when he was talking about the statue. _"{No matter what a person had done… he didn't judged their past. He suffered on the cross to erase and forgive the sins of our past.}"_ I was thinking that after everything Ken said when I tried to open the gate and fight my fear. I may never be able to forgive myself for what I had done as the Kaiser, but if the others and more importantly Ken could, then perhaps my sins could be absolved after all.  
"I understand now." I muttered.  
"What, Osamu-chan?" Monodramon asked. I looked down and smiled down at the purple dragon.  
"I finally understand now, Monodramon." I replied. "I don't need to feel guilty all the time anymore for the past, for our pasts don't define our futures." He smiled back as I said that.

My thoughts then suddenly remembered the issue back at hand and I turned my attention back towards the truck.  
"Ah! The children!" I exclaimed. We saw Oikawa right by it talking to them.  
"Kids, Hikarigaoka. Remember this place well." We then heard the sounds of police sirens going off which meant the police were finally on their way. Oikawa took off running and we all chased after him.  
"Oikawa!" I shouted at him. We chased him a bit before we saw him get into a white Toyota Vista and drove off. "Damn it…" I cursed as he clearly got away.  
"I had a feeling after what Dad said that he had something to do with this… I just didn't have any idea how deep he was in this." Ross said. He then patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, they'll get an APB out on him soon."

We all stood on a nearby bridge and watched as the police were taking care of the kids. In the meantime, I explained to everyone what was going on and what had happened. All of them were surprised, especially Ken when I told him he had a Dark Seed too and that his accomplishments were all because of it. He looked so ashamed because of it and mentioned that he had a feeling something was off ever since Archnemon taunted us the day we dealt with my base.  
"Hey, the police will take care of them. Let's just go home for tonight and think about what to do next." Daisuke told me. I nodded. There really was nothing more we could do for them at the moment. We then all walked back to the car that was being driven by Jou's older brother.  
"We've got a problem… No matter how hard we try, there's only space for one more." I was about to off my seat but Ross pushed me into the front seat.  
"Feel free to take mine, I'll either take a train or just have Dad bring the F-150 around."  
"You sure?" I asked.  
"It's fine… I need to talk to him anyways. Take care guys. Hikari, I'll see you back at the apartment tonight." He then walked away and pulled out a cellphone.

We were quiet for a bit as we drove back down towards the bay.  
"Um, about that Dark Seed…" Hikari spoke up. "What will happen to the children that have it?"  
"Well, they'll probably be like Ken at first. They'll become smarter and more athletic… Since they all want to be like the old me…" I said.  
"Is it possible that maybe it won't take hold? Maybe they'll just end up like me…" Ken expressed some slight hope. I shook my head.  
"If it's my Dark Seed… then…"  
"Don't tell me… they won't all become Digimon Kaisers and Kaiserins, right?" Miyako feared.  
"I don't know…" I buried my face in my hands.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Youshizawa Takashi-kun, age seven. Kawada Noriko-chan, age ten. Shibata Hiroshi-kun, age eleven." The news reporter was reading off the names of the kidnapped children who just had been recovered. But Ruki was still crying.  
"Where are they?" She cried.  
"Okay, I'm calling the police." Kaito stood up. He was just about to pick up the phone before the front door opened.  
"Osamu-chan? Ken-chan?" Ruki lifted her head and looked towards the hall.  
"We're home." Osamu said as their parents ran the corner and Ruki quickly embraced her boys.  
"Ken-chan! Osamu-chan!" She started to cry again.  
"Mom… you're smothering us…" Ken muttered.  
"Boys! Don't do things that will make your mother cry!" chastised Kaito.  
"We're sorry, Dad." Osamu apologized.  
"What…are you involved with?" Both brothers looked at each other and nodded. It was time for them to come clean… about everything.

At the same time, Shuu finished up dropping off the rest of the group at their homes and apologizing for keeping them out so late.  
"So, when I realized, it was already this late." Shuu explained to Daisuke's parents as he was the last one to be dropped off. "I sincerely apologize.  
"No, no, thank you very much for driving him home!" Daisuke's mother, Hinata, said.  
"Well then, excuse me." Shuu took his leave.  
"Take care."  
"Thanks a lot!" Daisuke waved as the door was closed.

Daisuke walked into the living room and saw Jun with a smile on her face.  
"Hey, what's with you?" He asked.  
"Daisuke-kun, you're friends Ichijouji Ken, right?"  
"Uh, yeah… you already knew that."  
"Well…" She ran her hand through her hair. "His brother… Ichijouji Osamu… he's single right?" Daisuke's eyes widened.  
"W-what's wrong with you, Jun? Stop messing around! I thought you only had eyes for Yamato-san…" Jun grew a frown upon hearing his name and huffed.  
"I'm over him."  
"What?"

"At the concert… when everything was going crazy… he was right there… he had a chance to run into my arms, grab me and take me to safety… but he only just ran by me like I was nothing."  
 _"_ _Well, he was more concerned with the Digimon attacking than running into your arms."_ Daisuke thought. "Or… it could be that he never actually cared about you in the way you wanted him to." Daisuke said aloud to her. "Did that ever occur to you at all?"  
"Whatever… but I'm done with him! Rock stars are just too high maintenance. Geniuses are where it's at!" She declared. "~Osamu-chan…" She sang as she danced into her bedroom. Daisuke groaned.  
"Oh, gods… better give Ken and Osamu-san a heads up from now on…"

Back at the Ichijouji residence, Osamu and Ken spent the next few hours talking with their parents and explaining everything involving the Digimon. They didn't hold back and omit anything. They explained about what had happened during the night and Osamu's disappearance; about the Dark Seed and the Kaiser. To say their parents were shocked was an understatement. Finally, the two of them got up and walked to Osamu's room where Monodramon and Wormmon were waiting.  
"Mom, Dad… these are our Digimon partners." Osamu said as he kneeled next to Monodramon while Ken picked up Wormmon.  
"Pleased to meet you two, my name is Monodramon." "Good evening. I'm Wormmon."

At the same time, the kidnapped children were being returned home of their folks and while things looked normal for the time being, they all were ticking time bombs. Merely pawns in a sick game that Oikawa was playing.  
"This is good." Oikawa said as the car being driven by Mummymon continued driving further north. "All the rituals are now complete. Now we just have to wait for the time. The time when the Dark Seeds grow in the dark depths of the kids' hearts, and then we'll reap those Dark Flowers."

He chuckled as the car kept on its drive…

* * *

Well, this isn't good for anyone.

Got nothing much to add for this chapter so see you all around for the next one.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	52. Titanic Struggle above Mt Fuji!

Another chapter in the books... and we're actually just about through with this story.

Shoutout to **animangafreakZX** and **graciellasamma** for the faves.

And shouts to **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** and **DigimonAT0318** for the reviews.

Nothing much more to add so let's get on with it.

* * *

 **Chapter 51: Titanic Struggle above Mt. Fuji! BlackWarGreymon vs WarGreymon!**

 _Tamachi District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan._ _December 27th, 2002. 1046 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

After Ken and I explained things to Mom and Dad last night, Dad wanted us to come to his work considering that Oikawa apparently works there… or did at one point. We asked the others to meet up with us while we waited for Dad to find what he was looking for. Dad's job was accounting at a computer research group in the area.  
"Best wishes for the new year." We heard one of Dad's co-workers say.  
"I'm finally done!" One of the female workers said as they walked by.  
"I'm so tired…" The other one informed.  
"Huh? I thought you were done cleaning up, chief." Someone questioned Dad as we could see he was digging around for something.  
"Yeah, almost." Dad looked around for a bit before he finally found something. "Here it is!" He ended up getting the whole office's attention with that outburst.

He walked over to us before he pulled out a staff photo from around October of 1999, or so he claimed before placing it on a table we were crowding around… and right there in the picture was Yukio Oikawa; though his hair was much shorter, there was still the same person.  
"This man?" Dad pointed to Oikawa. I nodded.  
"That's him without a doubt." I told him.  
"Hmm…" Dad said as he leaned back in the chair. "Oikawa-kun didn't come to work yesterday or today, and hasn't even called… come to think of it… he hasn't showed up for almost a week now…"  
"Thanks, Dad. Can we keep this?" I asked as I held up the picture.  
"Sure, take it. After everything that was said, I know you boys can't stay out of this… but please try not to do anything reckless." Ken and I nodded to his advice.  
"Don't worry, Dad… we won't." assured Ken.

"Still, I can't believe Oikawa-kun would be behind all this… oh… here, take a look at this one. From April of '96 I think." He pulled out another photo causing us to all widen our eyes as we saw Oikawa in it as well… and looking very much less what he was before.  
"Unbelievable…" Miyako muttered.  
"Aside from some resemblances, you'd think they were two different people." said Hikari.  
"He looks more… healthy in this photo." pointed out Iori.  
"And much less creepy." Daisuke added. We gave Dad our thanks once more and headed out.  
"Still, he's a normal human, no matter how you look at him…" Iori observed as he looked at the photo again while we walked down the street.  
"But how can he control Archnemon and Mummymon?" Miyako wondered.  
"I'm more concerned about where he's currently hiding…" I told the others.  
"If we could just be able to capture him, we could force him to help rid the Dark Seeds out of the kids he had kidnapped." added Ken.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

As the kids were wondering about him, Oikawa and his two Digimon minions were well out of town now and driving to a hideout closer to the base of Mt. Fuji. It was a small summer retreat for a family that they were planning to stay at until the next phase of their plan was ready. Mummymon was fishing out some groceries from the trunk of the Vista V40 while Archnemon was trying to break off the handle to the door so they could get in. After a moment, she snapped it off.  
"It's open." She informed as they all walked inside.

"Are you saying it's a delusion?" Oikawa was sitting and reading a newspaper while a local opinion show was on the TV. They were currently discussing the rapid appearances and disappearances of Digimon for the past few days.  
"Yes. There is no other explanation at this point." Oikawa took a sip of tea he was drinking.  
"What are you talking about? Buildings and roads have collapsed!"  
"I'm not saying that's a delusion. It is a fact that something happened, but seeing monsters is clearly a delusion." Archnemon sat on the couch next to Oikawa.  
"No use talking to you!" Archnemon chuckled at the screen and the bickering that was going on it.  
"I was wondering what they'd say in these specials. They're blaming everything on some mass delusion."  
"Digimon and UFOs are the same to them, they don't want to believe in them." Oikawa told her as he turned off the TV and threw the paper he was reading on the couch.. "Still, if they're making such a big fuss now, I wonder what will happen when the Dark Seeds grow."

At the same time in the Setagaya Ward back in the city, Takashi Youshizawa, one of Oikawa's Dark Seed implanted children, was busy doing school work before he put his pencil down.  
"I finished!" He declared to his parents.  
"Finished…? All the homework for winter break?" His father questioned. He nodded which caused his mother to kneel down and embrace him.  
"That's great, Takashi-chan!" She rubbed his head.  
"Rather than great, it's amazing… I mean, he was kidnapped and only released last night."  
"Takashi-chan is just a smart boy."  
"Oh, yeah. Actually, he started crawling earlier than the other babies."  
"See? Takashi-chan could end up making the news like the Ichijouji brothers!"  
"We're the parents of a genius boy!" Like Kaito and Ruki Ichijouji before them, the Youshizawa's were beginning to fall into the same spiral of self-absorbed behavior like them; unaware that their boy was glaring at them darkly. The Dark Seeds were taking affect much faster than what the Chosen Children probably feared. For Ken, he received his back in July of 2000 but it wasn't until September of that same year when the benefits of it were starting to truly show to himself and his family. The clock was running against the Chosen and it was shorter than what they expected.

 _Takaishi Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 27th, 2002. 1136 Hours.  
P.O.V. - Takeru Takaishi_

Mom was working a half day today and was getting ready for work by the time we all came back to my place. I quickly explained to her about the photo and she asked if she could see it, just to confirm that it indeed was Yukio Oikawa she and Ross's father saw the other day.  
"Yes, that's him!" She immediately exclaimed as she saw the photo.  
"Knew it." I said.  
"Where did you find this?"  
"Ken-kun and Osamu-san's father provided it… oh, Mom, you're gonna be late." I reminded. She quickly checked her watch.  
"You're right." She handed me back the photo. "We'll talk about it when I'm back. Make yourselves at home, everyone." She looked over to the others.  
"Okay." They all said.  
"Bye!" She opened the door and headed out. She then stopped and looked at me as she dug into her purse. "Right, here." She handed me something. I soon took a look at it and had a wide smile on my face when I realized what it was.  
"She's investigating yesterday's incident." I explained to them as we headed to the table in the living room/kitchen.  
"Takeru-kun's mother is a reporter." Hikari informed as we sat down.

"Here it is." I placed the paper on the table.  
"These are…" Daisuke was shocked at what he was seeing.  
"What is it?" V-mon tried to see.  
"The kidnapped children's names and addresses." Miyako informed.  
"That will be helpful." Hawkmon nodded.  
"Osamu-chan…" Monodramon muttered as we all looked at him picking up the paper.  
"We have to save them." declared Osamu.  
"Of course!" Tailmon chimed.  
"We can't let them suffer like I did."  
"It's because of that, we've got to work hard!" added Daisuke.  
"Yeah!" We all cheered.  
"By the way, how should we start, dagyaa?" Armadimon questioned. We all kinda drew a blank on that one.  
"I got it." Ken spoke up. "We'll split up and meet each one of the kids. Let's see, first… how's about Takeru-kun and Iori-kun…"

Iori and I soon found ourselves in the Bunkyo Ward as we were waiting for one of the children, Noriko Kawada, to show up.  
"She should be coming home soon." I believed as we were near her home in an alleyway for a bunch of the houses.  
"Yes." Iori nodded. We soon spotted a young girl with a green bag and a medical mask over her face walking towards where we were. A small black and white cat was approaching her.  
"Is it that girl?" Patamon asked. We watched as the cat got close to her and started to snuggle against her leg. Within a moment, she immediately kicked it!  
"She kicked it…" Iori was dumbfounded along with the rest of us with what we saw her do.  
"How awful, dagyaa!" Armadimon said before the two of them got quiet as she got closer to us.  
"It may be useless to talk. Her Dark Seed may have already grown." That was bad news for us… those things were growing way too fast.  
"I'll talk to her anyway!" I told Iori and ran over to her.  
 _"_ _What if we have to fight those children? I don't even like fighting against Digimon… If that happens…"_ Iori thought to himself.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

Miyako, Hikari and myself were in Ayase in the Adachi Ward as it was starting to get late as we checked in on a kid named Hiroshi Shibata. However, our attempts were met with being yelled at by his mother.  
"Just go home already!" She slammed the door on my face.  
"Please, listen to me one last time!" I begged but got nothing. I sighed in defeat. "Sorry." I addressed the girls. "I guess my explanation wasn't good. I made her mad…"  
"It's not like that! Daisuke-kun, it wasn't your fault-" Hikari tried to tell me.  
"Hikari." Tailmon grabbed her hand. "We all understand." She, V-mon and Hawkmon all nodded.  
"Okay, let's go for the next one!" I started to run.  
"Wait, Daisuke-kun!" Miyako chased after me as we left the building… though I could've sworn I just saw Hiroshi looking at us through the blinds of his room; and I could've sworn I saw his lips move and mutter the word 'Insects'.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Back at the house that Oikawa was hold up at, it was now starting to snow heavily in the area. Mummymon was currently in the kitchen cooking up some dinner.  
"Some wine for the finishing touch…" He pulled out the cork with his teeth before pouring some into the pot he was stirring. Meanwhile, Archnemon looked outside the window at the snow that continued to fall.  
"It's snowing. Do you think it'll pile up tomorrow?" She questioned Oikawa.  
"It's possible. Go put chains on the car now."  
"Me?"  
"Who else?"  
"Yes." She nodded, but was very reluctant do it because she honestly felt above some menial task like that. Leave it to Mummymon she would've suggested, but Oikawa probably would've augured with her about him already doing dinner. "Why me?" She growled as she kneeled down and started place the chains on. She soon noticed a bright light and looked up to see what looked like a meteor heading towards the ground. "What's that?" She wondered as it impacted nearby… and at the crater was a familiar looking silhouette that had vendetta on its mind.

 _Inoue Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 28th, 2002. 0835 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

We all met up at Miyako's house as we planned our next move. Yesterday wasn't good for Osamu and I as it was clear those seeds had taken hold of the kids way faster than we believed. Osamu and I talked about it on the way to the first child we visited and thought that perhaps we'd have maybe a few months to try to figure things out before the seeds would start to take effect, but that was clearly wrong.  
"It's hard to say this in front of Osamu-san, but… It's just impossible for us to remove the children's Dark Seeds." Miyako admitted. Osamu nodded but looked very depressed upon hearing that. "But that doesn't mean we can leave them alone. That Oikawa is the one who planted them and is probably the only one who can remove them. He wouldn't ignore the kids either, so he will surely contact them at some point."  
"In other words, we'll keep our eyes on the children." Patamon said.  
"Exactly!"

"Okay, let's do it." Daisuke pumped his fist up. "We'll ask Taichi-senpai and the others to help us."  
"Agreed!" Several of us nodded.  
"Sorry, that's all I can think of." Miyako apologized.  
"Please don't worry about me." Osamu gave a small smile. There was soon an alert sound coming off of Hikari's D-Terminal.  
"Who is it?" Tailmon asked.  
"Onii-chan and Ross-chan…" She muttered.  
"Okay, let's get this started!" Daisuke jumped up on to his feet.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Meanwhile at Oikawa's hideout, all was calm and quiet in the area as Oikawa, Archnemon and Mummymon slept. However, the sound of loud footsteps approaching the building soon woke him up.  
"How long are you going to sleep? Wake up!" He shouted as he threw his pillow at Archnemon.  
"What is it!?" She exclaimed as she was abruptly woken up by him.  
"We have a visitor. Welcome him."  
"Visitor?" Mummymon looked confused as he soon got up as well. They soon got an answer when the entire kitchen exploded. "Wh-what the?" He questioned as he and Archnemon jumped out of the large hole in the building that was flooded with smoke. They quickly ducked as another fireball headed straight for them and impacted with the house once more. Archnemon and Mummymon got back up and saw their attacker which utterly shocked them.  
"You are.." She shouted… as they came face to face with BlackWarGreymon.

 _Digital World. December 28th, 2002. 0937 Hours.  
P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

The others all soon spilt up and went about their ways of keeping an eye on the kids. Meanwhile, Taichi and Ross wanted me to meet up with them in the Digital World. When I got to the place they wanted to meet, I saw the area; it look devastated, so much destruction.  
"What happened here?" I questioned as Tailmon and I walked up to them.  
"No idea…" Taichi answered.  
"Taichi!" We heard Agumon's voice echo across the rocky, destroyed area. We look and saw him, Gabumon and Guilmon running towards us. "I know your world is in trouble too, but…"  
"He came back." Gabumon said.  
"Who's 'he'? Who are you referring to?" Ross asked.  
"It's… It's BlackWarGreymon." Guilmon admitted.

We soon followed them to the place they wanted us to follow.  
"Gennai-san gave you the power of Qinglongmon in your world, right? But that power was supposed to keep the Digital World balanced." informed Agumon. We all gave a light gasp upon hearing that. "The power was already weak to begin with, and then it was given to us…"  
"I see… I feel bad about that." Taichi apologized.  
"What's that?" Tailmon questioned as she saw a mountain in a sort of portal.  
"It looks like Mt. Fuji." I observed.  
"It doesn't just look like it, it is Mt. Fuji." Gabumon answered to our shock.  
"Wait… don't tell me… BlackWarGreymon is currently in the Real World?" Ross shuttered to say that; in truth we all shuttered at that idea.  
"That's what Qinglongmon said." Guilmon nodded. Great, who knows what kind of damage he could cause.

"That's why we called you guys." Agumon told us.  
"How do we fight him?" Tailmon asked.  
"Agumon and I have some more power from Qinglongmon. We can evolve to Ultimate once more." Gabumon explained.  
"I'll fight him myself if I have to." Agumon declared.  
"We can keep MetalGarurumon in reserve… and if we still can't fight him… we still have Omegamon to fall back on as a last resort." suggested Guilmon.  
"Are you ready to fight BlackWarGreymon?" Taichi questioned Agumon.  
"If I can't convince him…"  
"Okay, got it."  
"Let's follow him, then!" I added. All of us excluding Gabumon ran for the portal to confront BlackWarGreymon before things get worse.  
"Good luck, guys!" Gabumon waved at us.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Long time, no see. Tell me… were you still searching for me? If so, here I am." BlackWarGreymon told Archnemon and Mummymon, but it was anything but friendly.  
"We were wondering where you disappeared to, and here you are!" Mummymon shouted at him before he and Archnemon morphed into their Digimon forms.  
"Are you going to fight me?" Both of them actually hesitated upon that suggestion.  
"So you're BlackWarGreymon?" Oikawa walked out of the smoke. "What do you want?"  
"I wanted to meet the one who gave life to me." Oikawa merely chuckled.  
"The one who gave life to you? You've met me a thousand times." Archnemon rolled her eyes. "It's me. You were born from my hair."

"Then who gave life to you?" Both Digimon were taken aback by that question that the Dark Tower Ultimate gave them. "Mummymon, what about you?"  
"W-well…" They both stuttered.  
"It was me." Oikawa simply stated. "These are the Digimon I created with data processed from my genes." He walked forward. "My team's job was to research human genome analysis."  
"In other words, I have your genes in me." concluded BlackWarGreymon.  
"Exactly. So, you're done here, right? Go home!" He ordered.  
"I've been wandering around without aim. Searching for a world where my existence would be recognized. But I couldn't find it anywhere. But after talking to you, I understand the reason. I, like Archnemon and Mummymon, was created from you, and you are in the Real World. We shouldn't have existed in the Digital World to begin with."

"Go take your philosophy somewhere else." Oikawa dismissed him and started to walk away.  
"Sure, once I'm done here." Oikawa turned back around as BlackWarGreymon raised his arm. "Alien substances must be buried!" Oikawa had to laugh upon hearing that.  
"What are you talking about? I'm no alien substance."  
"Yes, you are. You're something that should not exist in the Real World!" Oikawa's eye suddenly twitched upon hearing that.  
"What are you talking about? This guy isn't making any sense. Right, boss?" Mummymon asked. He got no response. "Boss?"  
"Alien substance? Something that shouldn't exist in the Real World?" growled Oikawa.  
"What's wrong?" Archnemon questioned.  
"Die!" BlackWarGreymon charged forward.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

"Stop!" Agumon shouted as we saw BlackWarGreymon charging for the kill towards Oikawa. All parties suddenly stopped as they were close to each other.  
"You… we meet again." BlackWarGreymon addressed Agumon.  
"I want to talk to you once more." He said as we all got into a fighting stance.  
"There's nothing to talk about!" He tried to stab Oikawa.  
"Watch out!" I shouted as my Digivice glowed.  
"Agumon, warp-evolve! WARGREYMON!" WarGreymon quickly locked claws with BlackWarGreymon as Oikawa and his goons ran off.  
"They saved us again, like in Hikarigaoka!" I heard Mummymon shout.

"Tailmon, we'll chase after them!" Hikari said.  
"Guilmon, we'll back her up!" Ross added.  
"Digimental Up!" They both cried.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" "Guilmon, Armor-Evolve! Honorable Fire, WAIBANMON!" The two of them took off after Oikawa while WarGreymon was quickly struck to the ground by his dark counterpart.  
"Why did you protect him?" He questioned us.  
"He's the only one who can remove the children's Dark Seeds!" I answered. "That's why we won't let you kill him!"  
"Then you'll have to stop me!" He charged right at me now.  
"Stay away from Taichi!" WarGreymon jumped forward.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Hikari and Ross followed Oikawa's Vista as it drove down the highway away from the battle between the two Ultimates.  
"Here they come." Archnemon, who was driving, informed.  
"Okay." Mummymon leaned out the window. "Snake Bandage!" Both Nefertimon and Waibanmon dodged out of the way to avoid.  
"Curse of the Queen!" "Waiban Flame!" Both of them attacked to try to slow down the car. Mummymon soon took down the backseats, crawled into the trunk and tore it off before throwing it at them causing them to avoid again.  
"Call everyone!" Ross ordered to Hikari.

Back in the skies above Lake Kawaguchi, both WarGreymon's were locked in struggle as they rapidly struck their claws at each other. BlackWarGreymon got an opening and pushed back WarGreymon.  
"Stop it! Remember what I told you?" WarGreymon shouted. "We can be friends!"  
"We can't!" BlackWarGreymon began charging his Gaia Force.  
"Why?"  
"Because I don't need it!"  
"Watch out!" Taichi watched from the ground. WarGreymon brought up his shield to block the attack and sent it crashing into the lake causing a massive explosion of water.

Soon, the two gave a few more strikes before they crashed into a snowbank with WarGreymon pinning BlackWarGreymon into the ground.  
"It's not out of pity." WarGreymon tried to tell him. "I really mean it!"  
"I don't get it. Why do you care about me so much?" WarGreymon said nothing to him before he kicked him off of him and sent him tumbling down the snow bank. "The world doesn't need two WarGreymon! You or me, one is enough!"

On the highway, Mummymon kept on firing at the two pursuing Digimon as the car was making tight turns. As they kept up the pursuit, Aquilamon and Pegasmon showed up.  
"We're here to help!" Aquilamon shouted.  
"Thanks!" Hikari waved.  
"Hey, where's Daisuke, Iori-kun and the Ichijoujis?" Ross questioned.  
"They went on ahead!" Takeru answered.

Up ahead on the highway, divers were perplexed by the strange road block that they encountered. Three Adult-Level Digimon and three boys were the ones managing it.  
"It's dangerous ahead, so please do not take this road." XV-mon told drivers as he, Stingmon and Strikedramon were waving warning lights.  
"Please take a detour through Ooyama Road." Stingmon advised.  
"Don't be alarmed; let's procced in an organized manner." said Strikedramon.  
"Sorry for the inconvenience!" Daisuke chuckled.  
"Uh, guys, something just occurred to me…" Osamu muttered.  
"What, Onii-san?" Ken asked.  
"We're right next to a Self-Defense Force base… with a lot of army equipment I believe."  
"It's fine, Iori and Armadimon said they'd handled that." Nearby, three older Type 75 Self-Propelled Howitzers were moving forward before Digmon unleashed a Big Crack right in front of them and stopped them in their tracks.  
"Sorry, dagyaa!" He and Iori ran away.

The car chase continued to get closer and closer to Gotenba as the wave of attacks were starting to do the same to the Vista that Archnemon was driving.  
"I'll take the wheel!" Oikawa ordered.  
"Yes." complied Archnemon who got out and turned into her Digimon form on the roof of the car.  
"You're here to help me?" Mummymon questioned.  
"It was an order! Spider Thread!"  
"Snake Bandage!" All the Digimon following flew out of the way. Oikawa smirked as he didn't see them in his side mirrors anymore.  
"Serves you right!" He was premature in saying that as he looked up to see Paildramon right in front of him.  
"You won't get away!" declared Daisuke.  
"Go, Paildramon!" cried Ken.

Paildramon was heading right for them but one of BlackWarGreymon's attacks flew nearby and caused him to back off from the attack. Oikawa pulled some insane maneuvers behind the wheel and got around. Daisuke and Ken growled before seeing the WarGreymon clash getting closer to the city.  
"They're heading for Gotenba…" Ken observed.  
"Wh-which should we handle first?" Daisuke wondered.  
"Daisuke! Let MechaRaptormon go after Oikawa!" suggested Paildramon.  
"Good idea!" He nodded.  
"Agreed, we can have Imperialdramon help WarGreymon." Ken reminded.  
"Paildramon, ultimate-evolve! IMPERIALDRAMON!" Imperialdramon took off as the Vista continued to drive away.  
"We'll get them! Leave it to us!" Miyako told them as Aquilamon, Nefertimon, Pegasmon and MechaRaptormon flew by.  
"I'm counting on you!" Ken called back.

In Gotenba, people were running away as WarGreymon was sent flying into the wall of a building.  
"I'll finish you off!" BlackWarGreymon roared as he got ready to launch another Gaia Force.  
"You won't!" Imperialdramon soared towards him. "Imperialdramon, Mode Change! Fighter Mode!" He soon grabbed BlackWarGreymon in his hands.  
"What are you doing!?"  
"We can't fight here." All three Ultimates soon were above the cloud layer with the only thing that could be seen was the peak of Mt. Fuji.  
"The sea is below, so we can do whatever we want here." WarGreymon explained.  
"Fine." BlackWarGreymon growled.  
"Gaia Force!" "Gaia Force!" "Positron Laser!" All three attacks collided and created a massive explosion high in the sky.

Oikawa's Vista soon came to a stop near a train crossing and he hit the brakes sending Archnemon flying forward before he got out.  
"Leave the car and run!" He yelled as the train arrived.  
"Yes, sir!" Both Digimon nodded.  
"Please get out of the way!" Hikari shouted as the Chosen Children that followed Oikawa was running through a crowd of panicked civilians.  
"Damn persistent kids!" Mummymon cursed.  
"No good! It's too crowded to use my special attack!" Nefertimon feared. That didn't bother Mummymon who used his gun on the three Adult/Armor Digimon. They devolved into their normal forms upon being hit. Mummymon snickered as he thought he won… but didn't realize the crowd of people moved out of the way… and that MechaRaptormon had him in his sights.  
"Howitzer Blast!" The shot was smaller than normal… and tore right through Mummymon's right shoulder and blew off his whole arm.  
"AHHHHHH!" Mummymon screamed out in pain as he just managed to dive into cover right in some buildings and onlookers; meaning that MechaRaptormon couldn't proceed to follow Oikawa and his minions.

The kids ran up to their hurt Digimon while MechaRaptormon devolved back into Guilmon and Monodramon.  
"Are you okay?" Hikari picked up Tailmon.  
"Where are Oikawa and the rest?" She asked.  
"We lost them…" Miyako sadly admitted.  
"Maimed Mummymon though… doubt that's much of a victory…" Monodramon said.  
"He turned a fraction of a second early, we would've really crippled Oikawa's plans by taking out one of his bodyguards." Guilmon kicked the ground.  
"Still… we were just so close…" Patamon sighed as the sounds of police sirens were getting louder.  
"Anyway, let's get out of here." Takeru informed.  
"Yeah, come on, Guilmon." "Let's go, Monodramon." Both Ross and Osamu motioned to their Digimon as they all ran away.

"Even though it was two on one, I still didn't think I'd lose." BlackWarGreymon admitted. All three Digimon were engulfed in the blast and fell back to Earth and landed on a small rocky part of the shoreline. "I wish you would have finished me off… I wish you would have knocked me out of existence…"  
"Stop trying to look cool!" Wormmon shouted at him.  
"What?" He turned to look at him.  
"Are you saying you want to die? You look for strong opponents not because you want to win, but because you want to die? Because you think things will be easier after you die?" He took a pause. "But I'm not going to let that happen. You must be more troubled. You must suffer more. Because that's what it means to live. Not everything will go well. Even when you feel miserable and don't want anyone to see you, you have to go on."

"I've had a lot of problems…" Agumon spoke up. "But at the same time, I've also had lots of fun. You asked me about the reason why you live… I don't know either. But one thing's for sure. Those experiences have made me what I am now." He stood up and turned to BlackWarGreymon. "Everything I've done is proof of my existence!"  
"I'm not proud of it, but…" V-mon got up on his feet and threw in his take on the conversation. "For me, eating, sleeping, playing and having fun with my friends is the best! But it's not like my life is empty! Whether I'm eating, sleeping, or playing, I do my best! That's why it's fun! That's why every day is fulfilling!"

"If you want to know why you live, you should live carefree." Wormmon suggested. "Even if you stumble on a pebble…"  
"That life is miserable." BlackWarGreymon stood up.  
"What did you say?" cried V-mon.  
"Where are you going?" Agumon asked. BlackWarGreymon sighed.  
"I'll try living that miserable life."  
"Then…?" wondered Wormmon. BlackWarGreymon turned to look at the three Child Digimon.  
"I'm grateful. I'm glad I spoke with you. No wonder you defeated me." He soon took off into the skies as the three Digimon continued to watch him.

All happy that BlackWarGreymon finally listened and decided on a new lease on life…

* * *

Yeah, the biggest thing I want to say is that if MechaRaptormon can't keep up the chase, then Oikawa's group doesn't get away that clean... so Mummymon drew the short straw and loses an arm. He's undead anyways, so it was bound to fall off eventually.

Take care everyone for next time.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	53. Dark Flower! BlackWarGreymon's Seal!

Hello, once again everyone. My finals are finally finished and now I'm free for three months to finish this up!

Shoutout to **Whiteling** , (Thought you already faved the story) **abbydobbie** , and **BlackAngel1234** for the faves and follows.

And of course shouts to **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** , **God of the Challenge** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **GreenD109** for the reviews. Boy, you guys were obsessed with my Mummymon maiming.

Today… is also a special day. Today is now one year to the day I started writing this whole beast and it has truly been fun. Hard to believe that I almost didn't do it. I actually wanted to complete the whole thing and then start uploading after I was finished but if I never had people that were counting on me and deadlines… I don't think I ever would've finished. So, thank you all for being with me as long as you have, true thanks to **Challenge** for being my first true follower (that I'm aware of.) and **MadDog** for all the support and fun chats we've had. Same goes for everyone else, you made this all possible… and fun for me as well.

Now then, I've rambled plenty long… let's start winding his down; now in the home stretch!

* * *

 **Chapter 52: Dark Flower! BlackWarGreymon's Seal!**

 _Digital World. December 29th, 2002. 0954 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Things were moving fast for the Chosen Children in their fight against Oikawa and his plans. In the Digital World, the Digimon, excluding Agumon and Guilmon who were back in the Real World once again, were busy on their end. They were bracing the cold elements as they were busy trying to build a seal to keep Digimon like Demon from traveling between the Digital and Real Worlds. It was also a double edge sword as it was also to close off the gate at Hikarigaoka that the children predicted that Oikawa must be planning to use in the coming future.

Back in the Real World, the Chosen were keeping their eyes peeled on the infected children and were actually starting to get their folks involved. Ross was sitting in the passenger seat to his father's F-150 as they were watching one of the apartments that one of Oikawa's victims lived at.  
"Hold on, turn up the radio…" Phil told Ross as they kept looking. Ross complied and turned up the radio that was playing a news bulletin.  
"After refraining from making any statements, the government has finally commented on this monster fiasco. In the recent press conference, they have stated that these monsters will be deemed as unidentified organisms, and mobilizing the Self-Defense Force is considered. In order to discover the cause of this situation as soon as possible, a joint investigative organization will be formed." The radio crackled.  
"Bet you two-thousand yen President Gore calls you later about this…" Ross put down his binoculars. Phil nodded.  
"Sounds like we've both got our work cut out for us." He sighed as he spit out some of his chew into a bottle.  
"Make that three of us." Guilmon reminded from the small back seat. Both father and son nodded.

 _Hida Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 29th, 2002. 1003 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I was sitting quietly and praying at Father's shrine before I turned to find Armadimon underneath the table right by Grandfather. Armadimon's stomach then suddenly growled which got his attention.  
"What was that sound?" I ran back to the other side of the table and waved my hands.  
"It was nothing!" I assured him as I was starting to sweat.  
"No, I'm sure I heard it from here…" He started to lean down to look under the table.  
"No…" I muttered but that wasn't going to stop him. As soon as he was getting ready, he must have left his Chu-Chu Jelly too close to Armadimon who just reached over and started to drink from it. He was like a lot of pets; leave your food unattended, he'll eat it in a heartbeat.  
"It actually moved…" Grandfather was somewhat surprised.  
"Iori, I'm sorry, dagyaa…" He ran out from under the table over to me.  
"It talked!"  
"I couldn't resist with it right in front of me, dagyaa."  
"It's okay, Armadimon." I picked him up. "Grandfather, I'm sorry for keeping it from you all this time. The truth is…"

"As I expected." Grandfather interrupted me as he stood up. What he said had confused me.  
"As you expected?"  
"I didn't think it was a normal stuffed animal." He turned and walked out to the patio. "That… Armadimon, is it? Is it a creature from some digital realm?" My jaw practically dropped as he asked that.  
"Grandfather, a digital realm?" Armadimon and I ran out onto the patio. "Do you know about the Digital World?"  
"So it's called the Digital World…" He kept looking out towards the sea before he turned back around to me. "You see, I was going to tell you someday… Well, I know I had to tell you someday, but… The truth is, your late father always talked about wanting to go to a place called Digital World." Just yet another surprise as my jaw dropped again.  
"My father did?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Father actually knew about the Digital World and wanted to go to it?

"Yes." Grandfather nodded as he looked back to the sea once more and put his hands on the rail. "Your father Hiroki had a great interest in videogame characters when he was young. It looked like he could see things that other children couldn't. He believed there was a world where those characters lived freely." I was just completely shocked. I never knew this about Father… perhaps that's why I was destined to be a Chosen Child then…  
"Father…" I looked down.  
"What Hiroki believed was true, it seems." Grandfather glanced over to Armadimon as he said that.

"Iori?" I heard Mom's voice and turned around to see her walking towards us. "You're not going out again today, are you?" She asked.  
"Mother… but I…" I was tried to argue.  
"You were out yesterday and the day before… It's dangerous now, so please stay home, Iori." I closed my eyes and prepared to argue once more.  
"Mother, I'm sorry, but I have to…"  
"Fumiko-san, you worry too much." Grandfather walked up next to me. "Iori was about to go practice kendo with me." I looked up at him as he put his hand on my shoulder. "Come on, Iori, let's hurry."

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

At a small rundown house located in one of the more broken down parts of the city, Mummymon, who in his human form was missing an arm now, was sitting on the steps of the building. This was where Oikawa was now making his hideout as he kept his proximity to his children even closer than what it was before. Of course, the issue remained that his plans still weren't truly ready yet and the Chosen Children were now starting to be much more of an irritant than before.  
"So, what do you believe we should do?" Oikawa asked Archnemon as the two of them were back inside the dark lit house and looked out the window.  
"With the Chosen Children watching them, we can't do much… But the Dark Seed children are progressing as planned. Should actually be ready in two days actually…" She told him which gave him a sick smile on his face. "However, it's just…" She spoke up once again.  
"What?"  
"One of the Seeds is about to sprout… sooner than we expected. What should we do?"  
"This was always a possibility; there are still more than enough for my goal… still… we can play this earlier bloomer to our advantage."

Meanwhile at the home of Noriko Kawada, the Dark Seed was rapidly growing inside her; sadly, she wasn't aware of the true damage it was slowly doing to her, nor was she aware that she was merely a pawn in Oikawa's twisted game.  
 _"_ _My former self wasn't my true self."_ Noriko thought to herself; the Seed already affecting her mind greatly now and twisting her like it had done to Osamu before. _"Now that I have the Dark Seed, I'll show everyone my true potential."_ She was sitting at her desk doing her work before there was a knock on her bedroom door before it opened up and her mother walked in.  
"Noriko, what are you doing? Studying?" She asked. She tried to reach out to touch her shoulder but Noriko picked up her book and closed it loud and fast; all the while having a very upset look on her face that kept her mother from touching her. Noriko then slammed the book on her desk as her mother took a slight step back. She then realized that Noriko clearly didn't want to talk to her so she decided to leave the room and her daughter alone. Noriko then stood up out of her rolling chair.  
 _"_ _Those filthy adults can't touch me. I'm going to become more and more of a perfect human."_ Her neck glowed red as the Seed was clearly reaching a critical point… and it was going to spell dark omens for her and the Chosen Children.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

"Miyako-san! Sorry I'm late!" I shouted out to her as Armadimon and myself arrived to Noriko's house for our watch. I was carrying my kendo equipment with me as well as I ran over to her.  
"Ah, Iori." She turned towards me when she heard my voice. "It's okay, I have lots of time in winter break." She explained.  
"Miyako-san, you can take a break." I told her. "Armadimon and I will be more than happy to take over your watch."  
"Sure. Actually, I'll come back in a bit to join you. I'll go get some drinks for us, okay?" She took off running for the nearest store while Hawkmon flapped his wings.  
"Get some meat buns too, dagyaa!" I shook my head and smiled upon hearing that request. Oh, Armadimon. Don't ever change.  
"Understood! Meat buns, right?" called Hawkmon.

I stood around and waited for Miyako to return before something glass, perhaps a bowl, a plate, a vase or something like that, was shattered from inside Noriko's house.  
"Where did you lose it!?" I could hear her scream, I guessed the unfortunate victim of her growing rage was her mother.  
"Noriko…!" Yeah, that was definitely her mother. Armadimon and I ran closer to her home.  
"I put it right here!"  
"Nori-chan, I'm sorry…" There was then the sound of a door slamming shut before everything went quiet. I looked down and felt guilty.  
"I don't like this…" I expressed my guilt to Armadimon. "I feel like I'm a wiretap."  
"It feels like the power of darkness is getting stronger, dagyaa." worried Armadimon. That's not good at all. Osamu and Ken said that the Dark Seeds were growing faster than they expected… but this… this is not making me feel any easier, that's for sure.

"How's it going?" A dark and familiar voice spoke up near me. I turned around… and found myself staring at Yukio Oikawa who was walking right towards me. "Seems like the Dark Seeds are growing well." I quickly dropped my bag and pulled out my still wrapped shinai which I pointed right at him. "Even though you're a Chosen Child, you can't do anything." He took another step forward as he gave a sick grin. I took a step back. "So? Does it bother you?"  
"Please return everyone to normal!" I defiantly ordered.  
"Why? They all wanted the Seeds. All I did was grant them their wish. So? Don't you want to become a great human who's envied by everyone?"  
"Being a great human doesn't have anything to do with being envied. It's only measured by how much you can contribute to others! What you are saying is wrong!" I shouted at him.  
"What's with that look…?" He muttered. His eyes then widen as if he saw something that shocked him. "Hida Iori…" He was looking at my name on my bag. "Hiroki's…" I lowered my shinai as he said that.  
"How do you know my father's name?" I questioned.

He still looked shocked before I heard running from behind me.  
"What happened here?" cried Hawkmon as he and Miyako had returned.  
"Right when we're gone!" Miyako added as they ran up behind me. Up ahead, Mummymon, and Archnemon turned the corner and ran over to Oikawa.  
"I'll evolve, dagyaa!" Armadimon informed. This was a bad situation though. Right now, Hawkmon and Armadimon could only go to Adult-Level against Archnemon and Mummymon who were both Perfects and they knew it.  
"Heh, I'll take all of you down!" Mummymon boasted.  
"Wait!" Oikawa turned around and held up his arms. What he said next surprised all of us. "We're leaving."  
"Eh?"  
"I said we're leaving! Didn't you hear me!?"  
"But…" They tried to argue as Oikawa turned back to look at me.  
"Come on." He pushed them away and soon left; leaving Miyako and myself confused about what had happened. How did he know Father's name?

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

Later in the evening that day, Oikawa was walking alone near the train tracks as he stopped at a bridge overlooking them and looking out towards the setting sun. This place was actually familiar to him as he had been here plenty of times in the past. His thoughts, however, were currently focused on Hiroki Hida… the only man whoever considered him his friend. Hiroki wasn't the only one who could see the monsters in the game, Oikawa did too. And they both shared the same dream of going to the Digital World together. His memories went back to one of the last times he and Hiroki met, before Hiroki took a bullet in London. Hiroki was actually making great progress in perhaps making their dream come true; especially after the fight between Greymon and Parrotmon back in Hikarigaoka in '95.

Oikawa's memories came back to this bridge. As a young child, he was always a loner and a sad child. That all changed when Hiroki befriended him and the two were almost like brothers. His memories remembered a good time when the two of them were in high school on their way back home as the cherry blossoms bloomed. Then another time years later after Hiroki was engaged and asked Oikawa to be his best man. Finally, he remembered walking this place alone in the rain and wracked with sorrow as he received word that Hiroki had died in the line of duty. Oikawa grasped the chain-link fence overlooking the rails as another train went by.  
"No… I'm not that weak of a person…" He said to himself. "I'm not weak!" He shouted as he ran away.

He soon ran to the cemetery where Hiroki's grave was. He stopped in front of it and pulled out his laptop with an image of a spider that they would've seen in their games.  
"Hida… I wanted you to see this virtual life. But you died before I could show it to you. I converted my genes to data and created this. This is part of me."  
"Yes, I am you." Archnemon's voice echoed as he soon saw her on his screen.  
"This is your true form." Mummymon chimed in as he appeared next to her.  
"My true form?" questioned Oikawa.  
"Your true form is hideous." They both said.  
"I-I'm hideous!?" He was taken aback by their words.  
"You don't want to accept your weak soul or your hideous self." They both continued to taunt. "Why did you create me?"  
"That's not true!" He slammed his laptop shut.  
 _"_ _You're an alien substance!"_ BlackWarGreymon's words from yesterday ringed in his mind.  
"You're wrong!" He screamed.

"Why couldn't we finish those kids off back then?" Mummymon questioned as he and Archnemon were at a playground with her on the swing set. "Such a great chance…"  
"I have no idea… besides… they're not the ones you're wanting right now anyway." Mummymon's mood darkened.  
"I swear, if I get my hand on MechaRaptormon, I'll tear off each of his limbs one by one until he begs for death." He growled as he took his left hand with his cane in it and moved it up to his arm stump at his right shoulder.  
"Think you can do it?"  
"Don't worry about me, my dear, I can easily still kill them even with one arm." He smiled which caused her to roll her eyes once more.  
"Whatever…"  
"By the way, it may have nothing to do with anything, but… Remember what BlackWarGreymon said yesterday? BlackWarGreymon is a Digimon and Oikawa-san is human, but we're neither."  
"Don't think too hard about it." She dismissed his question. "Even if you do, you won't get anywhere."

 _Motomiya Residence, Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 29th, 2002. 2116 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

The past few days had been making me think about this and after what Iori said about his Grandfather finding out about Armadimon, both Miyako and I decided that now would probably be the best time to come clean with our families; especially since we could probably use their help against Oikawa. I told them everything first before I let V-mon walk into the living room. Mom nearly screamed but calmed down immediately when V-mon said he loved her cooking. They were both a bit worried about me getting myself in danger but V-mon vouched for me and that was basically it. It was late when I knocked on Jun's door as there was something I needed to get off my chest to her.

"Jun? You in there?" I knocked once again before the door cracked open slightly and I could see her laying on her bed reading a book. "Hey…"  
"What do you want?" She asked as she kept on reading. I don't know what was going through her head but I decided to continue.  
"Can we talk for a few minutes?"  
"About what?"  
"I… I want to say… that I'm sorry." She stopped reading. "I'm sorry about… well, being the biggest pain in the neck in your life." Admitting this was hard for me but I had to do it. "Listen, with the things involving Osamu-san and those kids… it got me thinking that I really should at least say this… just in case."  
"I thought V-mon said you were going to be okay?"  
"Yeah, but… well, you never know. Look, I know we both get on each other's nerves and deep down I kinda wish we had the same dynamic like Taichi-senpai, Ross-san and Hikari-chan but… in the end you're still my sister and I know I don't show it… but I still love you." Nothing was said for a few moments. "Really?" I started to get upset. "I just said that all to you and you don't say any-"

"Thank you, Daisuke." I stopped as she spoke up.  
"What?"  
"Thank you, Daisuke… I could say the same to you. You drive me crazy sometimes and I probably do the same… but you're right, you're still my little brother and I love you." She got up and walked over to hug me.  
"Listen, Jun… if you want me to…"  
"No, don't change yourself for me…" She chuckled. "You being a real pain means you're you."  
"Yeah… and you going crazy for boys makes you as well… speaking of which, when you giving Osamu-san a bunch of gifts?" I joked.  
"Hey, I need to save a bit more money before I do that, I used a lot of it on Yamato before Christmas!" We both broke down and laughed.

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 30th, 2002. 1035 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I was out in front of the apartment building with Grandfather before I turned and started to walk away.  
"I'm leaving!" I told him as I was going to rejoin the others in their watching of the kids.  
"Take care." He said.  
"Yes." I kept moving with Armadimon before I stopped and remembered what happened yesterday. The fact that Oikawa apparently knew my father… I had to at least know a bit more…  
"What's wrong?" Grandfather questioned as he noticed me stopping.  
"Father wasn't a bad person, right?"  
"Huh? Of course your father wasn't a bad person. Did something happen?"  
"Yesterday, I met someone who knew Father."  
"He knew Hiroki?" I turned around to look back at Grandfather.  
"His name is Oikawa." Grandfather's eyes widen as I said that.  
"Oikawa? I've heard that name before."

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

I was keeping a close tail on Noriko as she was walking along with Monodramon. I tried to make sure she didn't notice me as she kept on moving. She soon turned a corner and after a few moments I looked around it… only to find that she was gone! I ran forward a few steps before I just noticed out of the corner of my eye she was at the gate to a small park and looking right at me. She clearly caught me. I sighed and turned to look at her.  
"Aren't you Ichijouji-san? What do you want from me?" The tone in her voice sounded much more… arrogant, angry… in a way it sounded like my old self.  
"I'm sorry I followed you. I apologized. But I want you to listen."  
"Listen to you?" She threw up her hands in an self-absorbed shrug. "Why do I have to listen to the likes of you? Who do you think you are?"  
"The poor fool who ended up giving you and all the other kids that Oikawa has tricked into getting my curse."  
"Please… you're nothing to me now… it's like you're normal; certainly not a genius anymore."

"You're wrong about that. My mind is still as sharp as ever but I'm better now than I was before without all the attention and praise being focused on me… my brother included as well." I walked up to her.  
"You're not going to say you made friends and your parents are happy, are you? What a joke. It's stupid." She scoffed and turned around.  
 _"_ _She doesn't realize that it's taking advantage of the void inside her."_ I thought to myself. "I… I should've realized all that sooner and what I was becoming but I let it all get to my head… and it made me a monster… please, Noriko-kun, don't make the same mistakes as me. You've got to fight this thing before it's too late!" I pleaded with her. She merely rolled her eyes and walked away.  
"Goodbye. And stop following me. You're like a stalker!"

"Onii-san!" I heard Ken's voice cry out which caused me to turn and see him, Daisuke and Iori running towards me.  
"What happened with that girl?" asked Daisuke. I sighed.  
"Well…" We all looked and suddenly she started to make gasping noises like she was choking and quickly removed her scarf. We then could see the back of her neck glowing red where the Dark Seed had been placed.  
"Look!" Monodramon exclaimed as the four Digimon ran forward.  
"What's happening to her?" Daisuke worriedly questioned.  
"That's…!" V-mon tried to say something before a red aura glowed around her head and her hair practically started to defy gravity and float upward like she was a Super Sayian or something; Ken knows Dragonball more than me. Noriko grabbed her head and just started to scream out in pain, chilling us all to the bone as we didn't know what we could do to help.

She soon stopped screaming as she opened her eyes and they looked completely blank and soulless.  
"Something's coming out of her head!" Wormmon noticed.  
"What?" Daisuke asked again.  
"Osamu-chan, this is bad! The Seed is sprouting!" Monodramon exclaimed.  
"What? All I see is her neck glowing!" I informed. Guess that's something only Digimon can see or something… The Digimon all ran further forward.  
"What is it? What's going on?" questioned Ken.  
"A flower is blooming!" V-mon shouted before we heard the sound of a cruel laughter.  
"Oikawa?" Iori wondered. A moment later, he appeared and walked over to Noriko while Mummymon and Archnemon ran in front of them in their Digimon forms. Mummymon was missing the arm from the other day, but still had that rifle that he now held in his left hand.

"Them…" Daisuke muttered.  
"What is he trying to do?" Ken asked.  
"He's going to take the flower!" Wormmon told us.  
"Daisuke." Ken turned to look at him.  
"Alright!"  
"Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!" "V-mon, evolve! XV-MON!" "XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON!" Paildramon got to work fast and launched out his nails which caused both Archnemon and Mummymon to jump out of the way. Archnemon then jumped forward and tried to grab him but he simply punched her in the face and threw her away. Mummymon fired his rifle and hit Paildramon in the chest but his armor deflected all of it. Now it was his turn.  
"Desperado Blaster!" The shots struck Mummymon in his chest and caused him to fall to the ground. Archnemon jumped up once more and latched onto Paildramon's back causing them to crash into the ground. Meanwhile, Oikawa used this chance to grab Noriko and start running away with her.

"Hurry! We have to get her back!" insisted Iori.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" Digmon was about to move before Mummymon placed his rifle down and threw out his bandages to tighten around his neck.  
"Don't get in Oikawa-san's way!" He declared. Archnemon then threw out her acid attack and hit Digmon causing him to devolve back to Armadimon. Paildramon opened fire again, but his shots got a bit too close to Oikawa and Noriko.  
"Stop it, Paildramon!" Daisuke cried. "You'll put her in danger if you attack now!"  
"Run away now!" I called out to Noriko as Oikawa put her back down but she merely smiled.  
"Why should I?"  
"Damn it…" I cursed. "It's no use… she's controlled by Oikawa."  
"Now, stay there and don't make a fuss!" Archnemon ordered.

"Oikawa-sama, please." Noriko bowed to him and he moved his hand until it was hovering over her head. He chuckled as we could see a dark purplish aura.  
"What's that? What's going on?" Daisuke asked once more.  
"It's terrible…" Monodramon admitted.  
"He's absorbing the flower!" shouted Paildramon.  
"Someone stop him, dagyaa!" Armadimon pleaded as the color from Noriko's skin was leaving her, making her look as pale as him.  
"Stop!" Iori ran forward causing Oikawa to turn around.  
"What?"  
"I can't forgive what you're doing! It's unforgivable!" Iori charged but as soon as he was close Oikawa slapped him in the face and sent him flying a few feet back towards us.

"This is the will of the children." He clearly lied.  
"It feels great…" Noriko muttered as she was obviously under his spell.  
"He's absorbing the flower's energy…" Paildramon said. Noriko fell over towards him before he grabbed her and tossed away back towards us.  
"Here, feel free to have her back now. I have no more use for her." Iori soon caught her as she passed out. I guess the good news is that the Dark Seed is out of her… but it blooming and him absorbing it's power can't be good for us. "Shouldn't you all cut that justice stuff out and put your powers to better use?" Iori brought Noriko back over to us and I held her while he turned back to stare down Oikawa.  
"You were my father's friend…" What?! We didn't have much time to process that information as Iori ran towards him once again. "Why are you using Digimon for evil!?"

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I soon stopped as Mummymon and Archnemon ran in front of him once again. Oikawa just looked at me and had a small smile on his face. It didn't look sinister or anything… more like… remembering happier times.  
 _"_ _They're alike… those righteous eyes are just like Hiroki's. Hiroki… you would be so proud of your boy…"_ His face then turned dark again. _"He's not here anymore."_ I actually got a bit scared and took a step back as that purple aura soon surrounded him.  
"Be careful!" Paildramon warned. "The power he absorbed from the girl's Dark Flower turned into a shadow…"  
"The energy is increasing!" Armadimon panicked beside me. We then heard a loud roar of anger before looking up and finding BlackWarGreymon flying right down towards before he landed between me and Oikawa's group with his eyes dead set on Oikawa.  
"I won't let you do this!" BlackWarGreymon declared. "Gaia Force!" He threw out his attack and blew away both Archnemon and Mummymon. Oikawa just stood there.

"What is going on here?" WarGreymon asked as he landed right next to Paildramon.  
"That energy shadow around Oikawa and BlackWarGreymon's dark power disrupt each other." Paildramon explained as Archnemon and Mummymon ran for cover; clearly knowing they stood little chance to BlackWarGreymon. "Something big is about to happen."  
"BlackWarGreymon, what are you trying to do?"  
"Don't worry, I just wanted to try this my way." He glanced over to his counterpart. "Oikawa, I have some business with you." He walked forward.  
"You were still around? How convenient." Oikawa once again scoffed in the face of something that could easily kill him. "I'll use the power of the Dark Towers you were created from too."  
"What?" BlackWarGreymon was taken aback by that declaration. "I won't let you do as you please any more. I'll stop you!"

"What can an artificial object like you do?" Oikawa smirked.  
"Then why did you create Archnemon? Why did you create Mummymon?" Oikawa growled as the Ultimate-Level Digimon told him that. "Do you hate loneliness so much?"  
"Nonsense…" That purple aura grew bigger. "You're wrong, you're wrong!" He roared at him. "I'm not that weak of a person!"  
"What is he agonizing about?" questioned Osamu.  
"Still, Iori's father's friend…?" Daisuke was still stuck on that revelation.  
"Iori!" We heard Miyako shout and saw her, Takeru and Hikari run over to us with their Digimon. At the same time, we could see Waibanmon flying in with Taichi and Ross.  
"This is quite the turn of events, isn't it?" Hawkmon said.  
"What is BlackWarGreymon trying to do with Oikawa?" Takeru asked me as he ran beside me.  
"Well…"  
"Do you want power?" BlackWarGreymon now wondered as he kept up with his tense conversation with Oikawa. "That's no use if you want to run away from loneliness! Even if you gained enough power to control the entire world, loneliness is all you would have." Oikawa took a step back before he grabbed his head. "Am I wrong?"

"So this is what's going on." My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw Grandfather running right towards the two of them!  
"Grandfather…" I cried at him, trying to warn him to stay away.  
"Sorry I'm late, Iori. So you're Oikawa Yukio-kun after all." He took a few steps forward. "You were always quiet and didn't have many friends, but going this far…" Oikawa turned and glared at him.  
"You're…  
"Hida Chikara, Iori's grandfather, but you know me as your friend Hida Hiroki's father."  
"Hiroki's father…"

"You two believed in a world where the digital characters lived freely. I was worried hearing that from my son, and banned him from talking such nonsense. I still remember his sad face at the time. Even after you two grew older, you two still believed in that digital world, and let that dream grow larger. But Hiroki suddenly died. Your depression over his death didn't seem normal. The reason was obvious if you think about it. Hiroki was the only one you could consider a friend. I wish I could have helped you back then. It may be too late now, but… Will you be my friend? I want someone I can talk to about Hiroki's childhood." We all watched as the dark look on Oikawa's face vanished and turned into one of kindness.  
"When I was with Hiroki… Mr. Hida…" He walked forward before he grabbed his head once more. He screamed out in pain before dropping his arms and his eyes were now red with no pupils in them. The dark aura grew even larger.  
"Look out, Grandfather!" I screamed out.  
"Get out of there, dagyaa!"

Oikawa threw up his arms forward and the dark aura shot forward towards Grandfather! But just before it hit him, BlackWarGreymon moved into the way and took it square in the chest… leaving nothing but a black hole in in; fatally wounding him.  
"BlackWarGreymon…" Paildramon and WarGreymon muttered.  
"He protected Grandfather…" I said.  
"You…" BlackWarGreymon grunted in pain as he fell to one knee. "So it was you…"  
"'You'? Who are you talking about?" Takeru questioned. Oikawa's eyes returned to normal as the aura vanished.  
"Ah, right… I have to be alone. Like I've been until now, and forever from now on."  
"No! Don't let him control you!" BlackWarGreymon begged.  
"That's right, I have to collect all the Dark Seeds so my wish can be granted. To go to the Digital World." He laughed as he ran away.

"I won't let you…" BlackWarGreymon tried to get back up. "I'll never… let him get his way!"  
"BlackWarGreymon!" WarGreymon ran over to him and tried to help him.  
"N-no way… he defeated BlackWarGreymon?" Daisuke stuttered as the rest of us were still shocked about that.  
"My body can't last any longer… This life created with Dark Towers ends here. But there's still something I can do…" choked out BlackWarGreymon.  
"Stop talking!" Paildramon told him, trying to tell him to save his breath so maybe we could help him.  
"Sealing the gate to the Digital World at Hikarigaoka…" He started to walk forward. "I'll do it with this body!"  
"What are you doing?" WarGreymon asked as he reached out to try to grab him. BlackWarGreymon then roared and ran forward as he took into the skies. He flew high in the air as purple strands of energy flew out of the hole in his chest before he disintegrated into data.

I nearly had tears in my eyes and I think the rest of us did too for his sacrifice.  
"It's funny… he was born to be a villain, to be just another pawn for evil… in the end… he died a hero." Ross said as we kept watching his data scatter across the city.  
"I wonder if BlackWarGreymon found that at last…" Takeru muttered.  
"Yes, I'm sure." WarGreymon dropped to his knees in sorrow from the sacrifice of his counterpart.  
"BlackWarGreymon!" He screamed his name to the heavens as a rainbow soon appeared. It's probably safe to assume that BlackWarGreymon's sacrifice did seal the gate at Hikarigaoka. But there still was the question of this 'you' that he referred to that was controlling Oikawa and the fact that he was still planning to use the other children for his plan to go to the Digital World for who knows what after that.

But one thing I know for sure is that BlackWarGreymon found peace in the end…

* * *

Boy, that always tears me up… always get flashbacks to the final moments of Anakin Skywalker with that sacrifice. Also, I thought that little scene with Daisuke and Jun should've been included in the show, gives him more of an arc that shows he's grown as well… even if he is still quite a hot head.

Well, that's it for this one. Thank you all for this great year of enjoying my crazed writings and hope you'll enjoy more. Take care for now.

 ** _"_** ** _Push the button, Frank."_**


	54. Vindictive Mastermind! Bloody Terror!

Here we are, now it's getting close for the final showdown.

Shoutouts to **GreenD109** , **MadDogLucario96** , **Whiteling** , **DigimonAT0318** , and **Super Saiyan 3 Odd** for the reviews... and contributing to almost 200 of them. Damn... I can't believe I got that number.

Anyways, I've actually got one last card to play with this chapter that some of you may have noticed already, who knows. Also editing to 80s Japanese music... just tapped into a new market of classic hits! Man, what I wouldn't give to have Digimon as an 80s anime.

Let's get this wrapped up... and see our true mastermind.

* * *

 **Chapter 53: Vindictive Mastermind! Bloody Terror!**

 _Hikarigaoka District, Nerima Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 31st, 2002. 0914 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

This year to remember will be coming to an end in almost fourteen hours now. At the start of it, things seemed normal: I was Ken Ichijouji, one of the Boy Geniuses of Tamachi, on some distant terms with my brother, and kind of a bit lonely. Within a few months, I'm suddenly a Chosen Child again, reunited with my partner Digimon, Wormmon, find out my brother's dark secret and have to fight him with my new friends before bringing him back from the brink. Now, everything is certainly better than what it was at the start of the year. But while my life was certainly good, it wasn't anything to celebrate for the New Year's as the job was not finish. There was still a bunch of children that needed rescuing from themselves as well as the mastermind behind all these events. After what happened yesterday, it's clear we're reaching a critical point in this fight against Oikawa… and I get a suspicion that we're due for a final showdown with him soon. Whether it will be today or not… well, I wasn't sure about that a few hours ago when I woke up. Now, I think I might be right.

All of us had been split up and watching once more the infected children that Oikawa had implanted copies of Osamu's Dark Seed into. Even some of our parents were keeping their eyes on them too. We also were keeping an eye on Noriko who seemed like she had returned to normal but also appeared quite weak and drained from it. As we kept our watch, we noticed the kids were all slowly starting to move towards one place: Hikarigaoka. That's why I was sure that we were going to have our showdown with Oikawa here today. One or two of them going to Hikarigaoka, we could dismiss as a coincidence; but all of them? He's got to be making his final move. BlackWarGreymon said he too was being controlled before he sacrificed his body and closed the Digital Gate here. I still didn't know what that meant and neither did the rest of us, but I guess we'll find out sooner or later. Secretly, I hope BlackWarGreymon was wrong or mistaken about all that. I want this all to end with Oikawa.

We were all starting to meet up at one of the bridges overlooking the road at the same time the children were, though we were keeping low as not to be noticed. Soon all of us excluding Taichi, Ross, Takeru, Sora and Mimi were now waiting in some bushes as all the children arrived.  
"What are they doing?" Miyako asked as we kept observing the gathering kids.  
"It looks like they're waiting for something." Hikari noticed.  
"Something…or someone? Could it be Oikawa?"  
"That's probably a safe assumption, why else would they all gather here?" Osamu asked.  
"It's probably related to what happened yesterday." suggested Iori.  
"Did they hint at anything back then?" Yamato questioned.

"But why Hikarigaoka?" Daisuke wondered while looking at me.  
"The gate has opened many times in Hikarigaoka." I told him as I remembered what Koushiro said in the past; of which he nodded as I explained that. "It could be related to that."  
"Still, according to Gabumon and the others, the gate was completely sealed thanks to BlackWarGreymon." reminded Yamato.  
"Another one." Iori whispered as we saw another one of the children showing up.  
"Oh, you're all here too." Patamon said as Takeru joined us.  
"Where are Taichi-san, Ross-san, Mimi-san and Sora-san?" Takeru looked around.  
"Taichi and Ross went with Sora and Mimi to watch the girl from yesterday." Armadimon told them.  
"Do you honestly think we needed all four of them to watch her? I'm sure just one of them would've been fine." Koushiro believed.  
"Hey, I'm sure it'll be fine, just some added measure." Jou assured.

We all kept sitting quietly until we heard the sound of a cell phone ringing. Koushiro's eyes went wide in surprise as that clearly was his. He pulled it out and answered it.  
"Yes?"  
"Koushiro?" We heard the sound of a kind, female voice, so that quick suspicion of it perhaps being something sinister was shot down. "I'm in front of the Hikarigaoka train station." Koushiro quickly got up and looked over the railing. I took a glance down and saw that it was his mother at the phone booth just below us.  
"Why did you come?"  
"Well, you know… Ishida-san, Takaishi-san, McGlathery-san, Takenouchi-san and Kido-san's brother… all your friends have their families helping you out with this, right? But I'm not, so… I know it's not much, but I made some onigiri."  
"O-onigiri, you say?" All the Digimon perked up upon hearing that.  
"I brought them for everyone."

"Okay. I'll be there in a bit, so please wait there. Bye." He hung up then rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Sorry, I have to go for a bit." He then took off running towards where his mother was.  
"Onigiri, dagyaa!" Armadimon cheered while V-mon just jumped into the air with joy.  
"Still, am I the only one who thinks things keep getting worse?" feared Hikari. Takeru shared her look. "That aura we saw coming out of Oikawa yesterday… What was it? Oikawa is obviously not a normal human. Can we really save those children?" When she puts it that way, it's not really sounding great for us. Takeru then smiled and put a hand on her shoulder.  
"I don't know. But we have to believe we can and do our best, Hikari-chan." She then smiled back at him.  
"You're right. Sorry I said that." I then glanced up towards a nearby building as I thought I saw something on the roof in my peripheral vision but found nothing there.  
"What's wrong, Ken-chan?" Wormmon popped his head out of the bush.  
"I just felt a presence… er, well, I get the feeling that we're not the only ones watching the kids right now."  
"A presence? Do you think it might be Oikawa?" Osamu asked me.  
"Maybe… I don't know. Could be my imagination for all I know."

"Thank you for waiting!" Koushiro thanked as he ran back up to us with his mother.  
"Good job, everyone. I made some onigiri. Please have some." She handed the box to Hikari.  
"Thank you."  
"Thank you very much!" The rest of us said.  
"You should go home now." Koushiro looked over to her.  
"Can't I stay a little longer?" She sounded like she really wanted to be more involved. Osamu and I had small smiles; she just reminds us a lot of our own mother.  
"We don't know what could happen…" He told her.  
"Do I really have to…"  
"Yes!" Koushiro gained a more stern look on his face. He was only wanting to make sure that she didn't end up getting caught up in the fighting. She looked very disappointed when he said that and Koushiro looked guilty the next moment.

"Please understand how Koushiro feels." Yamato spoke up to her. "He really worries about you."  
"I understand, but…" She then looked over to the kids. "It's those children, right?"  
"Yes." answered Jou.  
"Aren't their parents worried about them?"  
"They probably are." Yamato added. She soon had a realization cross her.  
"I know! I'll contact their parents!" She told Koushiro. "I'll ask them to come and see what their children are doing with their own eyes."  
"Ah! Good thinking!" Koushiro nodded.  
"Right?" She then turned around. "I'll get going then. Goodbye, everyone. Don't overdo it, Koushiro!"  
"Okay."

"But will bringing their parents help?" Miyako expressed some doubt.  
"Even if they come, they can't remove the Dark Seeds." Iori sighed.  
"I don't think it will…" Osamu admitted. "Look at me, I had a pretty nice home life before with practically everything good for me, and I still ended up falling… unless those kids are like Ken, they're gonna wind up like me and help with whatever Oikawa has planned for them."  
"We can't think like that!" cried Takeru. "If their feelings connect, something could happen."  
"Yeah. We've seen miracles like that many times." Tailmon agreed. The older Chosen Children nodded.  
"Still…" Miyako was still greatly worried.  
"Hey, I just realized something. Have you thought about why humans can't see the Dark Flower?" I asked the others. "I think it's not something physical, but mental. I have a reason for that. The Dark Seed inside me stopped growing when I realized that my family loved me when I thought otherwise." Osamu gave me a slight pat on the back when I said that. That also perked up the spirts of the others a bit.

"Everyone, look at that!" Hawkmon called out from the tree as he pointed at the kids. We all turned and found Oikawa with them now as they were all practically swarming him.  
"Oikawa!" Osamu exclaimed.  
"So he finally showed up." Daisuke growled. We all got up and charged forward towards him, just running past a couple before Mummymon and Archnemon appeared right in front of us.  
"Monsters!" The couple cried out in terror before running away.  
"You won't get in our way." declared Archnemon.  
"Out of the way!" V-mon yelled back.  
"Don't you dare touch those children!" Osamu roared.

"I'm afraid I must. If I don't take the Dark Seeds, they will keep growing and they'll end up becoming Dark Trees without much of a human side." Our eyes widened upon hearing that. This was much worse than we though. We were thinking they'd just end up being Kaisers and Kaiserins but this…  
"Is that true?" Yamato asked Osamu and myself.  
"It didn't happen in either of our cases… but I'm sure it's horrible…" I said.  
"Just a slight downside to the whole process. Your Seeds were the original ones, so they could adapt well." Oikawa then motioned to the kids. "But theirs are copies. They're imperfect and were forcefully planted, so the result will obviously be different."  
"You knew that and still did it!?" Iori shouted at him.  
"Even then, it's what they wanted." The kids all nodded. He showed no remorse and instead just sinisterly grinned, actually, I think he's clearly gotten more unhinged since yesterday.  
"Dammit…" cursed Daisuke.

"Well then…" Oikawa pulled out a laptop and began typing. Clearly he was beginning the process to probably open the Digital Gate.  
"What are you doing?" Miyako demanded.  
"We're going to the Digital World." Mummymon explained which confirmed my thought, as well as draw Archnemon's ire.  
"H-hey! You're talking too much, Mummymon!" He covered his mouth fast with and dropped his rifle.  
"It doesn't matter." Oikawa said. "They can't stop our plans, after all."  
"Go there? How?" inquired Iori.  
"How stupid. Have you forgotten I was able to send Archnemon and Mummymon to the Digital World? I did it with this." He pointed to his laptop.  
"If it's that gate, BlackWarGr-" Miyako quickly shushed Daisuke before he could say more.  
"When he realizes he can't go and is confused, it'll be our chance to save the children." Takeru explained the plan to him. He quickly realized how he almost screwed it up and nodded.  
"Right. Got it."

"What?" Oikawa mockingly questioned us. "I can answer any questions one last time before we leave."  
"Then I'll ask you…" Osamu took a step forward. "Why did you choose me?"  
"That question again?" Archnemon scoffed.  
"I knew the first time I saw you two. That you both were Chosen Children. That's all… of course… I did try to influence somethings a bit sooner… when I tried to run either of you down in the street!" Our jaws dropped as the memories came back of that close call. The car was a Vista V40 that day… and Oikawa was driving one recently as well…  
"You… it was you that day… you were the one who drove through the intersection!" I cried.  
"Indeed… of course, I would've easily gotten one of you if that red-headed American wasn't acting crossing guard."  
"Why?!"

"Simple. Both of you had a Dark Seed and I needed only one of you for my plans. It was just the choice of which one to use: an arrogant boy genius, drunk on his own fame, or a little boy, resentful and hating his family for ignoring him." He smiled.  
"What exactly would that have accomplished!?" Daisuke roared at him.  
"Easy. If dear old Osamu-kun had somehow managed to push Ken-kun out of the way and took the hit, I think young Ken would be very wrought with guilt for getting his brother killed; making him all the more susceptible to my influence. And the other way worked too, Osamu would've been guilty for losing his little brother when he had a chance to save him; and it would eliminate my greatest concern that he would keep you tethered and not falling for my words… but in the end, it didn't matter. Osamu fell and became the Kaiser and did the job of raising the Dark Towers, after you accomplished that, you were no longer needed."

"What exactly are the Dark Towers!?" Osamu quickly took this revelation and moved forward in his questioning.  
"They were originally in Dagomon's Ocean." Dagomon… that Cthulhu like Digimon that Ross and Taichi suspected was the ruler of that Dark World. They have several uses, but the best one is changing the Digital World's environment."  
"What did you want to change its environment for?" asked Koushiro.  
"To allow an adult like me to enter the Digital World!"  
"An adult…?" Iori sounded confused.  
"I could open the gate, but I couldn't go there. I guess the Digital World doesn't accept tainted adults." He then pointed to Archnemon and Mummymon. "I had no choice but to create these two with my genes and send them to the Digital World. But I wanted to go myself at any cost. Then I used you to build the Dark Towers, but you destroyed them all. Same with the ones I build here in the Real World."

He then paused at started to laugh as he kept on typing. I quickly glance back and saw Jou finishing typing up something on his D-Terminal, probably telling Taichi and the others to hurry here as fast as possible.  
"Of course…" Oikawa continued. "I was preparing for that from the very start. Never hurts to have a backup plan. I planted the Dark Seeds that act as a barrier in the Digital World inside the children. And today, for the first time, I will go through the gate to the Digital World." He leaned forward. "I've waited so long for this day…" He then leaned back up and showed that he was crying tears.  
"He's… crying?" Monodramon questioned.  
"What's wrong, boss?" wondered Archnemon.  
"My dream is finally coming true!" He shouted. "Hiroki-kun, I wish you were alive so you could come with me!" He stopped the tears and turned back around to the children. "Okay everyone, let's sing together! ~Let's go! Let's go! To the Digital World!~" The children soon chimed in with him, but they all sounded so monotone. Soon a bright aura was glowing from them as they kept on chanting.

"Is that the barrier?" Hikari asked.  
"In any case, it won't be long now." Daisuke turned to look at us. "When he panics because the gate isn't opening, we'll jump on him!"  
"Got it!" All the Digimon answered.  
"Okay! This is the final step!" Oikawa declared and to our shock a bright doorway appeared and opened up.  
"No way!" Miyako cried out.  
"See, it's open! Let's go, everyone!" He and all the children charged forward for the gate with Archnemon and Mummymon right behind.  
"We're going too!" "Please wait!"

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

"Why did it open!?" Yamato loudly questioned as they continued to look at the gate.  
"I don't know!" shouted Koushiro.  
"That's impossible!" Iori said.  
"We're going after them!" Daisuke informed. The Chosen Children with Digimon nodded and followed right after Daisuke who ran for the gate.  
"Idiots! Don't be reckless!" Yamato tried to stop them but they were already gone. "Takeru! Daisuke! Hikari-chan!" Yamato, Koushiro and Jou ran after them but the gate closed right in front of them.  
"We have to tell Taichi-san and the rest…" Koushiro explained.

At the same time, the gate reopened somewhere else in a field of flowers as Oikawa and the children ran out.  
"~Let's go! Let's go! To the Digital World!"  
"Here we are! This is the Digital World!" Oikawa declared. The kids soon split up. "Is it fun? I'm so happy, too… But I finally made it… Nobody believed me when I was little. Too early, I guess… I was born too early." His thoughts were interrupted when Takashi Youshizawa fell to the ground and screamed out. He soon ran over to him. "What's wrong? Why don't you play?"  
"It's not… this is the wrong place! It's not the Digital World!" Takashi told him.  
"What are you saying? This is the Digital World!"  
"No! This is…" The dark sky around them vanished… and revealed a twisted world that was hard to describe. Perhaps it was best to say it looked like something Salvador Dali could paint if he just went crazy with his Persistence of Memory painting.  
"Wh-what is this!? I-isn't this the Digital World?" Oikawa questioned. He then turned when he heard a loud explosion behind him.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

"Acid Mist!" Archnemon tried to attack XV-mon who dodged it.  
"X Laser!" His attack struck her as she was sent to the ground.  
"Neko Punch!" Tailmon clawed Mummymon in the face.  
"Megaton Press!" After that, Ankylomon jumped on him and crushed him underneath his weight, effectively disabling the two of them. We used the chance to run over to Oikawa.  
"We won't let you do whatever you want!" I shouted.  
"Right! Let the children go!" Ken ordered.  
"Why? Why did this happen?!" Oikawa looked even more pale than usual. His words confused us. "I thought I had finally made it…" All the kids gathered with each other and started to cry in fear.

"Hey, where are we?" Hikari asked as we looked around this strange place.  
"Where…? It's obviously not the Digital World." Miyako observed.  
"Since BlackWarGreymon sealed the gate to the Digital World, we must have ended up in a different world." Osamu theorized. Oikawa closed his eyes and clutched his fists to his face.  
"But I wanted to go to the Digital World!" He screamed out. As soon as he did that, a giant mouth with purple lips and fangs swirled and appeared above in the air.  
"Forget about the Digital World." It's voice sounded exactly like Oikawa's.  
"What's… that?" I questioned.  
"There's a much better world – this is it. I got here by accident, but this is the world I desire." The children all cried out in fear again. "Are you scared? Of course. Those who end up in this world will be frightened by the darkness that will consume their friends, and despair knowing there is no way to escape." The children cried once more.

"Who are you!?" Takeru demanded an answer. "Are you with Demon? Or Dagomon?"  
"Neither."  
"You sound like me… is it my imagination?" Oikawa was sweating heavily.  
"It's not your imagination. I am you."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Three years ago, I was searching for someone I could live in after my body was destroyed. It should've been my end but I refused to fade back into the darkness. That's when I found you."  
"Three years ago? When I was mourning over my friend Hiroki's death?"  
"No. You were not mourning over your friend's death. You hated him, since you had promised to go to the Digital World together, but you questioned why he died first."  
"No! Why would I hate Hiroki?"

The voice smirked and chuckled before it opened its mouth wide and revealed a large image. It was clearly Tokyo right by the Rainbow Bridge and the Digital World could be seen in the sky, meaning this was back on August 3rd of 1999. We could all see a slightly younger Oikawa, the one who looked similar in that older photo that Ken and Osamu's dad showed us.  
"That's…" The young Oikawa looked to the sky. He then dug into his suit and pulled out a photo of Iori's father. "Can you see it, Hiroki? It's the Digital World!" Oikawa had tears in his eyes. "No one else knows, but I do. That's the Digital World!" He then fell on his knees. "But Hiroki… you're horrible! How could you die and leave me alone? You're horrible!"

Suddenly a white fog began to surround him while a bright rainbow lit up in the sky. We could tell that was Taichi and the others when they returned back to the Digital World that day. Oikawa got back up on his feet.  
"Take me with you! Please! I beg you!" He gave up and cried more.  
"Do you want to go to the Digital World?" We heard his voice echo but it clearly wasn't him.  
"I do! I want to, if it's possible!" Oikawa looked around for the sign of where that voice came from.  
"If you can leave your conscience behind, I'll take you there. What do you think?"  
"I'll do anything! If I can go there, I'll do anything!"  
"Alright." The fog shifted and went straight for his ear before entering him. The mouth then closed and ended the view of the past.

"Th-that was…" Oikawa muttered. "I… I thought it was my heart's voice… But it wasn't that?"  
"I was the one who told you to do everything you did afterwards. After all, I do so love irony, my little marionette." The voice sounded like Oikawa but on the last sentence, it started to shift into another one. Tailmon's eyes widen and she gasped.  
"I know… I know who you are." She pointed towards the mouth. "You are… Vamdemon!" We all gasped and the mouth suddenly broke out in a cruel laugh. That same laugh I remember hearing back at Big Sight three years ago.  
"Vamdemon… really?" Angemon questioned.  
"Are you sure?" Hikari asked. Tailmon nodded.

"I knew you would find out who I am. Then let me tell you something else. I created the Evil Ring by copying and inverting your Holy Ring's data. In short, you're as much to blame for the enslavement of all those Digimon!" Vamdemon taunted.  
"I knew you were vengeful, but not this much… But we'll bury you in the darkness this time!" Tailmon stated.  
"Impossible. I'm not the same as before." His mouth vanished as Oikawa grunted out in pain. He then had a blue light shoot out of his mouth before it landed in front of him and revealed to be a copy of himself. "Thanks for all your work until now." Vamdemon's voice came from the copied body. "Oh, by the way… I lied about the Dark Seeds acting as a barrier. It's actually the food I need that will fuel my resurrection."  
"What?" Oikawa tried to reach out violently grab him but he only took one step before falling forward to the ground. The kids all panicked again as Vamdemon looked over to them and started to approach.  
"Don't worry. I won't kill you, not before I get the Dark Seeds."

"We won't let you!" I yelled. We all charged forward.  
"Come on!" Vamdemon pointed to Archnemon and Mummymon. "What are you waiting for?"  
"Okay!" Both of them went towards us. "Spider Thread!" Mummymon fired his gun along with her attack and our Digimon got out of the way. At the same time, Vamdemon quickly got to work removing the Dark Flowers from the children.  
"I said stop!" I shouted. I ran again but Archnemon jumped in front of me.  
"You won't get in our way!" She stopped me.  
"Damn!"  
"I'm done." Vamdemon finished extracting the last Dark Flower as all the kids were now passed out. "Now, how about some exercise after lunch?" He leaned forward… and his whole back tore open and revealed a much larger monster under that skin.  
"What the…?"  
"He's transforming!" Iori observed.  
"Into Vamdemon? Or into VenomVamdemon?" Takeru questioned.

"Neither! Call me BelialVamdemon!" I don't know how'd you even describe him. Red mask over his face with blonde hair and fangs. Large steel like body with a long sharp tail, giant dark purple wings on his back and these strange things on his shoulders. He stood up at this towering height and the first thing he did was… he wrapped one of his hands around Archnemon's neck.  
"What are you doing!?" She exclaimed. "I'm your servant!"  
"What do you think I'm going to do?"  
"What…?"  
"Think about it!" For the first time ever, Archnemon looked terrified. I knew how vicious Vamdemon was from the stories the others told, but this… He then smiled. "I see. That could be fun too." He took his other hand… and slowly started to rip off each one of her legs! We all had to avert our eyes at the blood curdling scream she gave out.

"Archnemon!" Mummymon cried out to her as he watched her being slowly mutilated. "How can you be so cruel!?"  
"I only read Archnemon's mind and did what she was thinking." BelialVamdemon explained without a shred of remorse, instead it was all sick glee to him. "Isn't that so?" He turned his head back to her.  
"I did think that, but it's not what I was hoping!" She cried as she was in serious pain.  
"Really? Anyway, do you know what I want to do next?"  
"I don't know… I don't want to think about it!"  
"Don't lie. You just did." His tail perked up and then pointed right towards her like a stinger… then flew rapidly towards her abdomen and impaled it, causing her to scream out once more.

"Archnemon!" Mummymon screamed out for her once again. "Archnemon-" He ran towards BelialVamdemon but was swatted away.  
"Now, what do you want me to do next? No, what don't you want me to do?"  
"P-please… forgive me…" She coughed out a bunch of her blood as she was barely conscious now.  
"Understood." Doubtful he was going to show her that. One of those shoulder things opened up to reveal a mouth that went forward… and bit off the entire part of her upper body. She didn't even make a noise this time before he causally tossed away what was left of her corpse and it disintegrated into data as it hit the ground.

Mummymon was completely devastated but her sudden but horrifically painful death.  
"Archnemon!" BelialVamdemon turned his head back towards him.  
"I went easy on her because she was a woman." Easy!? That was easy!? "She hoped for no more suffering and to die without pain, so I granted her that."  
"BelialVamdemon, you will pay!" Mummymon flew into a rage. He raised his only arm towards him. "Snake Bandage!" He wrapped up BelialVamdemon but he quickly broke free.  
"I've read your mind as well. You don't expect to survive against me."  
"I have no reason to live without Archnemon! I don't care if I die, but I'll take you with me!" Never thought I'd actually feel sympathetic for Mummymon, but I do now.  
"Those who are prepared to die are the worst." He scoffed. "When you don't want to die, your fear doubles.  
"Go whine in hell!" Mummymon opened fire once more. BelialVamdemon just knocked away the bolts of electricity.  
"Playtime's over! Melting Blood!" Red mist shot out from his shoulders which engulfed Mummymon who screamed out as he was merely melted.

Everyone was suddenly paralyzed at the sight of just what he had done to both Archnemon and Mummymon.  
"Hikari, Jogress Evolution!" Tailmon requested to her.  
"N-no!"  
"No…?"  
"What if you die!?" Tailmon was surprised by Hikari's fear as well as myself.  
"Ken-chan!" "Takeru!" "Osamu-chan!" "Miyako-san!" "Iori!" The Digimon called out for their partners.  
"It's the first time… I've never been this afraid of a fight…" That was a shock to me. I honestly thought that Takeru was the most steadfast of all of us what with him being a Chosen Children the longest out of all of us. This was the first time I ever saw him truly horrified.  
"I want to get out of here…" Miyako was shaking like a leaf as she grabbed her shoulders. "I don't want to stay here!"  
"This must be a nightmare…" Iori grabbed his head. "If it is, wake me up!"  
"This is all my fault… if I only just…" Osamu muttered to himself as he was clearly breaking down.

"What is wrong with you guys? If we think we can't win, we won't!" I tried to get the others back in the right mindset and above their fear. "We'll win for sure! We'll fight thinking that!"  
"Right!" XV-mon agreed with me. The others just remained still. "Daisuke, I'll fight even by myself!"  
"But just you…" I didn't feel too comfortable about the odds if that's the case.  
"You just thought I'd lose, right?"  
"Well, kinda…" I admitted.  
"Believe in me! Believe in what you just said!" He shouted at me. He's right. If I don't have faith in him, then we're doomed! I clutched my fists.  
"Okay! Got it! We've gone through a lot of tough battles, but we did our best and won!"  
"Right!"  
"Alright! Go, XV-mon!"  
"Leave it to me!" He turned to face BelialVamdemon.

"Ken-chan! Are you sure?" Stingmon asked him. I then heard Ken run before he grabbed my arm.  
"Stop him, Daisuke! Even if we fight, we should have a plan… Or we can Jogress, right?" I saw that Ken too was wracked with fear like the others.  
"Your hand is shaking." Ken let go.  
"Sorry… it's just… well… after what we just saw…"  
"If you've lost your nerve, Jogress Evolution won't work. Well, we'll manage somehow!" Ken tried to say some but couldn't. "Hey. Don't say anything more, please. It'd just mess me up." Ken looked guilty there.  
"I know how you feel, Ken-kun. I feel the same way." Takeru said. "But…" I turned around and ran towards XV-mon.  
"We won't lose!" I declared. "We'll never lose!" XV-mon then roared as he charged ahead.

We can't lose and we can't give up, because we're dead if we don't fight…

* * *

So, this got really hectic in a hurry. I know it's in Japanese technically, but I'm still hearing Richard Epcar speaking as BelialVamdemon.

Yeah, so as much as I wish I could take credit for the idea of Oikawa being the one driving the car that killed Osamu in the OTL, I can't. That goes to **Taiki Matsuki** and his fanfic _My Brother_.

Also, sorry for the gruesome details about Archnemon's death... but I really wanted to drive home how sick of a bastard Fang Face is in my own way.

Anyways, see you all next time.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	55. Master of Illusions! BelialVamdemon!

Here we are, the penultimate chapter before the last one and then the epilouge. This journey is almost to a close.

Shoutouts to **GreenD109** , **God of the Challenge** , **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , **Whiteling** , **Super Saiyan 3 Odd** , and a guest for all the reviews. Think it's the most I've ever gotten on a chapter.

Anyways, don't got much to add. Time to deal with one hell of a beast.

* * *

 **Chapter 54: Master of Illusions! BelialVamdemon!**

 _Location Unknown. Date Unknown. Time Unknown.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

I stayed a bit back as I watched XV-mon charge forward towards BelialVamdemon. This was certainly an uneven fight as BelialVamdemon must be another Ultimate-Level Digimon considering that Vamdemon was a Perfect and VenomVamdemon was an Ultimate. The main difference I could see was that while according to the others, Vamdemon had brains but lost it for brawn when he was revived as VenomVamdemon. Now, I think it's clear he's got both which makes a dangerous combination, especially with his cruel nature. I mean… slaughtering his own two servants even after they served him so… it just doesn't make sense to me, but I guess villains like him don't care; they're only in it for themselves. Now, it's XV-mon's turn to fight him alone while the others are still gripped with fear. It'll be a really tough fight, toughest we've ever had, but I have to keep believing in XV-mon or we're doomed.

XV-mon roared as he got close before he head-butted the evil monster's stomach and groin area, but that metal armor was really tough as he just merely bounced off his armor. BelialVamdemon then grabbed XV-mon by the back and soon threw him away.  
"It's useless, Daisuke-kun." Takeru was continuing that defeatist attitude. "There's no way XV-mon can win on his own."  
"Don't say that!" I snapped at him. "We'll win for sure." My fists tightened. "Even if we have to do it ourselves! We've always believed in that. How could we lose now?"  
"Right! We won't lose! We'll never lose!" XV-mon cried out as he continued fighting. He was putting his all into it but it was clear that BelialVamdemon was just toying with him. However, as he declared that, he was back up on his feet and a blue aura started to surround him. XV-mon charged with his fist which caused BelialVamdemon to smirk before he was punched in the face and actually pushed back by a few feet!

"What!?" He was completely surprised by what XV-mon just did to him.  
"It's working…" I muttered to myself. "It's working!" I repeated, this time shouting out loud.  
"X Laser!" XV-mon's attack hit BelialVamdemon in the chest and pushed him back much further than before.  
"Your power has increased!?" BelialVamdemon was completely surprised by this sudden turn of events. It's clear that XV-mon suddenly had gained a huge boost in power, probably thanks to my support and believing in him, which must have awakened something inside of him. This fight might actually be over fast if XV-mon keeps this up!  
"Go, XV-mon! One more X Laser!" I ordered. We might just win this right here and now.  
"X-Las-"  
"Mind Illusion!" BelialVamdemon's eyes glowed white before everything suddenly was engulfed in a blinding light.

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

Everything suddenly went bright and before long, I felt like I could open my eyes again. I soon found myself sitting on a familiar bench looking out towards Tokyo Bay. I knew this bench because it was right near the apartment… but I'm confused. How did I get here? Where's the others? Where's BelialVamdemon? Was it… could I actually have dreamt it all? I checked my D-3 and saw that it was a bit late on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. Shoot… I must… I must have been watching the kids again and then just ended up going back near home before taking a nap on the bench. I put my hat back on my head and soon walked back to the apartment.  
"Mom, I'm home!" I announced as I walked in… only to find not only Mom at the table… but Dad and Yamato as well.  
"You're late, Takeru. Come on, sit down." He said. I looked closer at their hands and saw their old wedding bands on their fingers… Mom said she was seeing someone lately… was it actually Dad? Did they get married and move back in with Mom and myself when I wasn't looking? Is this a dream too? Well… either way, I can't say I can't complain about this. I smiled and nodded before taking my seat at the table.  
"You're both early today." I said.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Miyako! Wake up and eat some desert, we got cake!" I heard Mom's voice calling for me and I bolted straight up out of my bed. For a moment I looked around and wondered how I ended up being back home. I couldn't have dreamt all that stuff that happened earlier, could I? I then shrugged and got up and changed out of my pajamas. I then headed to the living room/dining room and saw a large yummy cake sitting on the table with a few other sweets.  
"Boy, this is certainly a large sweet feast." I chuckled as I sat down. "Too bad you've got four children that make it vanish in a few minutes."  
"What are you talking about?" She told me as she was washing some dishes.  
"Huh? I'm saying that Mantarou, Momoe, and Chizuru would eat all this stuff as fast as me."  
"Who are they?" She asked. I looked at her strangely before I noticed a nearby photo and saw that it was just a picture of Mom, Dad and myself. Wait… I'm not an only child, I know it! Right? At the moment… I don't know what's real and what's not… but what I'm pretty sure about is that cake.  
"So wait… Really? Can I really eat this cake all by myself?" Mom just simply nodded and I then had a huge smile on my face. "Bingo, bingo, bingo!" I then dug in.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I was blinded by the bright light before I reopened my eyes. I soon found myself back in the Digital World and was looking around for Armadimon or the others. I kept walking for a few minutes before I found myself near the Village of Beginnings or what I thought was considering I never actually went there that time we tried to stop Osamu at File Island. I could see a bunch of small baby Digimon hopping around in a large field of beautiful flowers. and looking so happy. However, I soon stopped in my tracks as I saw a large man dressed as Tokyo officer looking around. He looked very similar to me and I knew it was impossible… but somehow, standing right in the Digital World… was my father.  
"Father…?" I questioned before he turned to me and gave me a smile. I nearly had tears in my eyes before I ran up to him and hugged him tight. I don't care if this is some sort of dream or perhaps I had been killed somehow… all I know is right now I just want to share the Digital World with Father who so wished to see it himself. I took his hand and led him along. "Father, this is the Digital World." I told him. "I really am glad I'm here walking you around here, Father."

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

I woke up and found myself leaning against a tree in the park before I looked around and tried to regain my bearings. I could see the weather felt much more like summer rather than winter and a quick check of my outfit suggested it too as I was wearing fewer layers. I don't really know what had happened with BelialVamdemon but my focus was suddenly changed when I noticed multiple kids playing around… with Digimon. Did… did we win? When did others start getting Digimon? I had so many questions but they all started to fade away when I just saw how happy others were with Digimon. I then leaned back more on the tree and took in the nice warm weather while under the shade of the tree.

"It's so warm… Isn't it, Tailmon?" I told Tailmon who was sitting near the other side of the tree as I could see the tip of her tail.  
"That's Tailmon!" I heard a boy say before I turned and saw a boy with his mother near me. In his hands he was holding a Nyaromon. "That's great… I wonder if my Nyaromon will become Tailmon soon." I smiled once more.  
"Do you like Nyaromon?"  
"Yeah, I love him!"  
"Then don't worry. I'm sure he will become Tailmon soon."

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

After that blinding light died down, I suddenly ended up on my bike riding across the Rainbow Bridge, confused completely about what had happened. I looked around and soon noticed my clothes were my school uniform like I was wearing earlier in the year before things got warmer and then cooler. I wondered what time it was as it looked like the sun was going down before I saw my D-3 read that it was May 12th at nearly six in the evening. It was the day that Osamu ran away to fully become the Kaiser. I soon peddled as fast as I could back to the apartment before I finally got there. However, there were no police cars waiting outside and neither was Mom or Dad outside crying and looking distraught either. I soon ran up to the apartment and walked inside before immediately going to Osamu's room and opening the door… only to find him sitting on the patio in a chair blowing bubbles.

"Hey, Ken." He smiled as he looked over to me.  
"Onii-san…?" I practically felt all my breath leaving me like it did that day when I discovered he was the Kaiser; but this time it was just the fact that he was still here… and not once did it look like that cruel person he was at one point.  
"Was feeling nostalgia today and decided to blow some bubbles for old time sake." He then smiled once again. "Think you can still blow them bigger than mine." I had no idea what to say before I walked forward and took the glass of soapy water from his hands and smiled back as I sat down in the chair next to him.  
"You better believe it."

 _P.O.V. – Takeru Takaishi_

I was happily eating a bowl of rice with a pair of chopsticks with my family all happily reunited. I wasn't hearing much but Dad was clearly just laughing at something Mom had said. I was truly happy just to see us back together once again.  
"Hey, Takeru?" I hear Patamon's voice before I realized he was on my head.  
"Huh? Oh, what is it, Patamon?" I asked.  
"Are you okay with this?" What did he mean by that?  
"What are you talking about?" I said to him.  
"You haven't realized yet, have you?"  
"But what do you mean? My family is finally together…" I looked back at them before my eyes widen as the whole room and them started drifting further and further away from me. "Huh? What's wrong?" I panicked. "Where are you going?" I tried to reach out. "We were all… together…" The whole world went white again.

"Takeru!" Patamon tried to draw my attention back to him.  
"This isn't real…" I muttered as I put things together. I slowly started to get angry after that. "None of this is real." It was all a trick. BelialVamdemon must have tried to trick me by showing me something that I truly desired as a way to distract and buy himself time.  
"Takeru!" I turned around and found Daisuke standing right behind me with a small hole behind him that led back to that strange realm.  
"Daisuke-kun!"  
"You realized, huh?" I nodded to his question.

 _P.O.V. – Miyako Inoue_

"Yum!" I cried out as I took another bite of the cake. It tasted like pure heaven! "I'm so happy!" I said with the fork still in my mouth.  
"Miyako-san." I heard Hawkmon's voice before turning and looking down at him on the floor. "Is this okay, Miyako-san?" I didn't know what he was meaning with that.  
"Oh, you want some too, Hawkmon?"  
"Is it fun to eat alone?"  
"What are you talking about? Of course it's fun." I took another bite of cake before I suddenly felt guilty about what I just said. "No, it's not."  
"You have many siblings and it's always noisy, so you want to be alone sometimes, right?" He hit it right on the head.

"Yeah." I quietly said. "I only wanted to be alone for a bit… It's not that I want to be alone forever!" I told him. I then stood up and kneeled down to him. "You always understand me, Hawkmon. This time I want to know more about yourself. Will you tell me?" His face went red and he started to rub his head.  
"It's a little embarrassing." I then heard some loud stomping sounds before turning and seeing XV-mon.  
"Miyako, I came for you." He said. I nodded as I realized the trick that I had fallen for.

 _P.O.V. – Iori Hida_

I took Father towards the edge of a large cliff that over looked an even larger field of flowers. It was actually quite breathtaking.  
"Iori." I turned and saw Armadimon next to me.  
"Armadimon! Where have you been?" I asked. "I was looking for you."  
"Iori, this is wrong, dagyaa."  
"Wrong…? What is?"  
"Iori…"  
"You're acting strange today, Armadimon. Right, Father?" I turned to him. He then started to move forward, not moving his feet and soon floated away off the cliff. "Father!" I cried as I lost his grip.  
"You can't go, Iori!" Armadimon told me as Father just vanished. I felt as if my heart had been torn out once more.

"Goodbye, Father." I teared up again as I regained my composure. "I haven't told my mother yet, but when we get home, I'd like to introduce you to her, Armadimon." I turned around after I stopped staring into the distance. "Do you think she will be surprised?"  
"I'm sure she'll be, dagyaa!" A bright red light glowed behind him that I just made out as Daisuke's Digimental of Courage. It then burst into flames before morphing into Fladramon.  
"Fladramon…" I muttered.  
"Come on, let's go!" He said.  
"Everyone's waiting, dagyaa!"  
"Yes." I answered them and followed them out of this mirage.

 _P.O.V. – Hikari Yagami_

"Look, Tailmon." I told her as I kept looking out towards the park. "Everyone is having fun with the Digimon."  
"Yeah." She said. "But…" I looked confused at her.  
"But?"  
"You have to realize on your own." I looked back at the park and the kids playing with their Digimon.  
"Everyone's together…" Tailmon ran in front of me.  
"Look closely, Hikari!" All the things I saw turned into photographs that just began to fade away, leaving me in a blank, white world.

"This is not…" I was sad for a moment before I felt angry at this cruel playing with my emotions and dreams that BelialVamdemon was obviously behind. "…real." Soon, a blue light glowed and revealed Daisuke's Digimental of Friendship that exploded with lighting before it reformed into Lighdramon. "Lighdramon!"  
"I came for you, Hikari."  
"For that day to come…" Tailmon spoke up and referred to the dream that I was having. "We have to defeat BelialVamdemon now."  
"BelialVamdemon…" I growled.  
"Let's go, Hikari. We have to grab our future with our own hands."  
"Right."

 _P.O.V. – Ken Ichijouji_

I leaned back and blew out another bubble. Once again, I clearly did one bigger than Osamu's.  
"Yeah, still got it." I said. He chuckled as I smiled.  
"Ken-chan?" I looked behind me to see Wormmon.  
"Oh, hey, Wormmon. You want to join us." I asked him.  
"Ken-chan… you know the truth about all this." He said. I looked at him confused.  
"What do you mean? I'm just hanging out with Onii-sa-" I looked back over to find Osamu was gone. I then looked back into the room and saw the message flashing on his computer screen again. 'This world is no longer good enough. Goodbye. You're all insects.' I felt depressed once more. "I know…" I admitted.  
"You feel just as responsible about what happened, don't you?"  
"I do… I just wish there was something more that I could've done… to keep him from becoming the Kaiser… to keep him from feeling all that guilt…"

"Ken-chan… it's not like that anymore. You did help bring him back and now things are good again. You've got to understand that while you can't change the past, you can change the future." I gave him a small smile.  
"You're right, Wormmon… he's not the Kaiser anymore and we're back to being close as brothers again… and I intend to keep it that way." I walked over to him and picked him up. "Thank you again, buddy." Back on the patio, there was a bright golden light that revealed the Golden Digimental that Daisuke and I used against Chimairamon and Chocomon that became Magnamon. "Magnamon…" I muttered.  
"Ken, hurry, I think your brother is still in trouble." I gave him a nod.

 _P.O.V. – Osamu Ichijouji_

After that bright flash died down, I soon found myself in the desert with a large sandstorm pelting me and no sign of Monodramon, Ken or the others. This storm was just so intense as I had to keep my eyes closed and wander blind in it.  
"Where… am I?" I muttered to myself, trying to keep as much sand out of my mouth. After a few more minutes, the storm began to die down and I soon looked out in the distance and saw this sort of black hole swirling above in the sky just next to this large wooden pole that stood out of the desert. Upon closer inspection, I could actually see someone on it. "That's…" My eyes widened as I saw who it was tied up on it. "The Digimon Kaiser!?" I soon ran fast over towards my old self who was looking a bit worse for wear and just hanging up there. _"It can't be… it can't be!"_ I thought to myself as I picked up speed. I stopped as I got much closer and then found a whole horde of Digimon suddenly appearing.

"You're a horrible person!" A Gotsumon yelled at the Kaiser.  
"Do you have any idea how many Digimon suffered because of you!?" A Gizamon chimed in.  
"The pain and humiliation of all those Digimon you oppressed and whipped… Have a taste of it!" An Elecmon added before he launched his attack right at the Kaiser. I then only wanted in horror as all the Digimon were taking their turns attacking my former self. One by one, they took their shots and the Kaiser was just looking worse and worse with each strike. One last attack was sent that knocked the Kaiser's glasses off and he fell forward. I was looking at my own face with blood trickling out of my mouth and my eyes open… all life had left them as the Kaiser now laid dead on the pole. All the Digimon vanished as I just continued to look on at my corpse. Everything that I had witnessed… it cause me to fall to my knees.

A second later, I watched as Monodramon came out of nowhere and picked up the glasses.  
"Osamu-chan… is this honestly what you want?" He asked me.  
"What… I want?" I questioned.  
"That you deserved to be punished by the Digital World for what you've done? That you've gotten off easy because of your actions? Osamu-chan… you've suffered enough. You have already paid for your sins."  
"My sins… you really think so?"  
"If anyone should say that, it's me. You were nothing but cruel to me and yet I stayed loyal to you throughout it. You made up for that long ago… you're not the Kaiser anymore. You should be stuck in the past. You said so yourself. Besides, aren't there things you have to do now?" His words echoed in my mind.

"Things I have to do now?" I questioned once more. "Things I have to do now… Things I have to do now." My blood got boiling before I stood back up. "That's right! This isn't the time to be regretting what I've done. I have to do something about the children who were implanted with the Dark Seed. For their sake, that I have to do now is… defeat BelialVamdemon!"  
"Osamu-chan!" Monodramon smiled. I then turned around when I heard a strange noise and saw Daisuke with Takeru and Patamon.  
"That's it, Osamu-san!"  
"Motomiya-kun!" I shouted back at him.  
"We'll defeat him. Everything starts from there." I then turned to see Miyako and Hawkmon along with XV-mon.  
"We know it well." She said to me.  
"Inoue-kun…"  
"You've done your best until now, Osamu-san. Just a little further!"

"As long as we have this feeling…" Hikari said as she appeared with Tailmon and Lighdramon.  
"Yagami-kun…"  
"We can't erase our past… But we can get over it."  
"That's right." Iori chimed as he, Armadimon and Fladramon showed up.  
"Hida-kun…"  
"Let's fight together, Ichijouji-san."  
"Agreed. I wouldn't want to fight next to anyone else more than my own brother." Ken showed up behind me with Wormmon and Magnamon.  
"Ken…"  
"Come on, Onii-san… we'll fight alongside each other to the end."  
"Everyone…" I looked back around to see all the others.  
"We're all partners!" Takeru declared which cause me to nod.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

As soon as Osamu nodded, the desert around us vanished and we were once again back in that strange realm with BelialVamdemon. I ran to the front of everyone as we all got into fighting positions.  
"We're back, BelialVamdemon!" I shouted at him. He merely growled. "Let's go!" As I said that XV-mon jumped over my head and charged ahead. Not actually just him, but Fladramon, Lighdramon and Magnamon as well.  
"Knuckle Fire!" "Blue Thunder!" "Plasma Shot!" "X Laser!" All attacks hit the cruel Digimon and he cried out in pain as he was blown backwards.  
"The attacks are working…" muttered Ken. "So XV-mon, Fladramon, Lighdramon and Magnamon appearing at the same time wasn't an illusion?"  
"I wanted to defeat him." I told him. "I thought 'I want to get stronger'. Then XV-mon powered up, and Fladramon, Lighdramon and Magnamon appeared."  
"Could it be…" Iori wondered.  
"This must be a world where emotions turn into power." Osamu theorized.

"Then if that's the case, then let's use it ourselves! Let's go, Patamon!" Takeru cried. Patamon nodded. He then grabbed his D-3 and brought it close to his face. "I'll never lose to the power of darkness!" His D-3 began glowing green.  
"Patamon, Armor-Evolve! Soaring Hope, PEGASMON!" "Patamon, evolve! ANGEMON!" "Angemon, super-evolve! HOLYANGEMON!"  
"What? BelialVamdemon questioned before Patamon's line attacked.  
"Heaven's Knuckle!" "Shooting Star!" "Heaven's Gate!" All three attacks hit their target as well.

"Hawkmon, us too!" Miyako shouted.  
"Got it!" He agreed. She placed her D-3 close to her face.  
"We won't lose… we won't lose… we won't lose!" It soon glowed red.  
"Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Wings of Love, HOLSMON!" "Hawkmon, Armor-Evolve! Bursting Purity, SHURIMON!" "Hawkmon, evolve! AQUILAMON!" BelialVamdemon growled once again.  
"Blast Laser!" "Tempest Wing!" "Kusanagi!" More direct hits on him!

"Armadimon!" Iori ordered.  
"Gotcha, dagyaa!" He nodded. Iori held his D-3 tight.  
"Playing with people's hearts is completely unforgivable!" His D-3 then turned a bright yellow light.  
"Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Steel Knowledge, DIGMON!" "Armadimon, Armor-Evolve! Whirling Sincerity, SABMARIMON!" "Armadimon, evolve! ANKYLOMON!"  
"Gold Rush!" "Oxygen Homing!" "Tail Hammer!" The attacks continued to crash into BelialVamdemon.

"Tailmon!" Hikari stepped forward.  
"For the future." She said. Hikari closed her eyes and held her D-3.  
"For the future, we will not be defeated!" Her D-3 then brightly glowed pink.  
"Tailmon, Armor-Evolve! Light of Smiles, NEFERTIMON!" "Tailmon, super-evolve! ANGEWOMON!" BelialVamdemon really growled at his former servant and her attacks.  
"Rosetta Stone!" "Holy Arrow!"

"Monodramon!" Osamu called to his partner.  
"Leave it to me, Osamu-chan!"  
"I won't let my past define me anymore!" Osamu's D-3 glowed purple.  
"Monodramon, evolve! STRIKEDRAMON!"  
"Strike Fang!" Strikedramon did some more damage.

"Let's do this, Wormmon!" Ken announced.  
"Right with you, Ken-chan!"  
"We have to beat that cruel and manipulative Digimon no matter what!" Ken's D-3 brightly gave off a dark green glow.  
"Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Stinging Kindness, TETERMON!" "Wormmon, Armor-Evolve! Illumination of Miracles, KONGOUMON!" "Wormmon, evolve! STINGMON!"  
"Teter Spin!" "Vajra Bombs!" "Spiking Finish!" BelialVamdemon once again was pushed back and now looked worse for wear actually!

"Wh… what are these brats…?" The vampire grumbled as he fell to his knees. "But… I will not be defeated like this!" He slowly got back up. "I have finally returned. How would I lose to some brats like you? Melting Blood!" His ghastly attack shot forward.  
"Ankylomon!" "Angemon!" Iori and Takeru called out for their partners.  
"Ankylomon!" "Angemon!" "Jogress Evolve! SHAKKOUMON!" Shakkoumon stood forward and took the entire attack head on before absorbing it.  
"What!?" BelialVamdemon was completely shocked by this turn of events.  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" Now it was Miyako and Hikari's turn.  
"Aquilamon!" "Tailmon!" "Jogress Evolve! SILPHYMON! Top Gun!" The Ultimate Digimon roared out in pain once more.  
"Well, then… let's try this thing… Strikedramon!" Osamu called out and suddenly Growmon appeared in this realm.  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON! Howitzer Blast!" Another dead-on strike.  
"Stingmon!" "XV-mon!" Ken and I gave our partners the word.  
"XV-mon!" "Stingmon!" "Jogress Evolve! PAILDRAMON! Desperado Blaster!" The attacks riddled the undead Digimon and caused him to drop on his knee once more.

"We won't let you do whatever you want anymore!" I declared once again.  
"Paildramon, ultimate-evolve! IMPERIALDRAMON!"  
"For our tomorrow." Ken took a step next to me.  
"Imperialdramon, Mode Change! Fighter Mode!" BelialVamdemon growled at the vast horde of Digmon staring him down.  
"BelialVamdemon, you lose!" I announced.  
"A…amazing…" Iori was in awe of the force that was assembled. "This is a realty thanks to this world's strange power."  
"But without Daisuke's will not to give up until the end and his blind faith in our victory…" Hikari said.  
"Without Daisuke's passion, I'm sure this power wouldn't have been born." Miyako finished her statement.  
"But why Daisuke-kun?" asked Takeru.  
"Yeah… why and how was Motomiya-kun able to tap into all this power?" Osamu questioned.

"Motomiya Daisuke, is it?" BelialVamdemon addressed me.  
"Yeah. What do you want?" I scoffed at him.  
"Why weren't you affected by my technique? Are you saying you have no dissatisfaction or worries?"  
"Yeah, I don't." I told him. "I'm perfectly happy right now. I have my family, my friends, and the Digimon. I have nothing to be worried about."  
"Are you saying there are children who have no worries in this world?"  
"Too bad." I taunted. "I'm not saying it's bad to be worried or unsatisfied. Wanting to improve yourself is important. But messing that up with the power of darkness…" I tightened my fists. "There's only one thing I want right now. Defeating you, BelialVamdemon!"  
"Double Positron Laser!" Both Imperialdramon's fired their shots right at him. He screamed out in pain before being blasted into a large explosion.  
"We did it!" I cheered.

However, when the dust cleared, there was this large made doorway in the realm that opened to his rocky, lifeless canyon. We all ran forward but when most of the Digimon hit the doorway, they just merely vanished leaving only Imperialdramon in his Fighter Mode, Shakkoumon, Silphymon and Strikedramon.  
"Fladramon and the rest disappeared!" I shouted as we ran into the canyon. "Huh? Our clothes changed…" I noticed we were all wearing our Digital World outfits again.  
"Does that mean… this is the Digital World?" Iori guessed.  
"Of course… that's why the other Digimon disappeared." Takeru put things together.  
"Where's BelialVamdemon?" Ken questioned.

Our response came in the form of his cruel laughter as he appeared from behind the canyon.  
"You were close, kids! Just a bit more and you could have finished me off." He now taunted us and looked much better off than he was before. "But now that we are in the Digital World, I can control the power of darkness to my liking."  
"What?" I gasped along with the rest of us. He lifted his arms up and dark energy began swirling around which caused him to get larger and larger.  
"He's turning into a giant…" Osamu observed. Hikari screamed out and grabbed her head.  
"The darkness… the darkness is surrounding us!" He kept on laughing until he was the same size as Imperialdramon.  
"Let's go!" Imperialdramon shouted and the other three Digimon followed him.  
"Fools! Sodom and Gomorra!" His gaping shoulder jaws opened up and fired these four dark balls at the Digimon that stopped them dead in their tracks and knocked them all to the ground. "Oh? I didn't think it would take so little to surprise you. This is nothing compared to my true power!"

He raised his arms in the air again and these two black auras surrounded his hands. We watched as they flew into the sky before tearing a hole in it. It then revealed Earth and the dark energy began spreading on it!  
"Th-the Earth is getting swallowed by darkness…" muttered Iori.  
"What will happen to everyone on Earth?" Miyako asked. "What about my father, my mother, and my siblings?"  
"Was this… was this your true goal?" Osamu demanded.  
"Exactly!" BelialVamdemon taunted again. "I was reborn to unify the Real World and the Digital World as a world of darkness, and control it all by becoming its king!"  
"What?" Ken and I cried out.  
"He said the same thing three years ago!" Hikari informed. "He hasn't changed one bit!"  
"What changed is his power!" Takeru said. "He must be a dozen times stronger now!" We continued to watch the Earth just continue to get engulfed in his darkness. They always say it's the darkest before the dawn.

I'm now hoping that dawn is coming…

* * *

Not looking too good for us, is it? Well, as we already know, it won't last long.

Thank you all and I'll see you for the last episode. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."**_


	56. Our Digital World!

Welp, he were are at the end of this all. There's of course an Epilogue but right now, this is the ending... and not the one we got in the show. Actually loved this episode before those final two minutes. Oh, well, I just pull a Adam Savage: 'I reject your reality and substitute it with my own.'

Shoutouts to **DracoFogg** , **MadDogLucario96** , **DigimonAT0318** , **GreenD109** , **Whiteling** , and **Super Saiyan 3 Odd** for the reviews.

Now then, let's finish this.

* * *

 **Chapter 55: Our Digital World!**

 _Summer Camp, 50 Kilometers Northwest of Tokyo, Japan. December 31st, 2002. 1231 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

After Koushiro alerted us about what had happened with Oikawa and the others in Hikarigaoka; we regrouped as fast as we could so we could head to the Digital World. However, doing it on the laptops or computers apparently wasn't working as they appeared to be jammed, meaning we were stuck in the Real World and not able to give help to Daisuke and the others who must be in trouble right now. Koushiro then suggested we head back to the old campsite where we first went to the Digital World all those years ago to try and help. His mother had helped gather all the parents of the kids that Oikawa kidnapped and infected with the Dark Seeds along with our families and Takeo; we all headed to the camp. However, along the way, everything suddenly started to get dark as the sky turned black. Something was obviously happening in the Digital World.

 _Digital World. Date Unknown. Time Unknown.  
_ _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We all continue to watch as BelialVamdemon continued his goal of combine the Digital World and the Real World into a world of darkness for him to rule. His corrupting power continued to shoot into the sky and slowly blanket the Earth in his dark energy; all the while, we were unable to do anything. Imperialdramon soon finally got back up and was prepared to resist once again. The rest of our Digimon got back up too but the odds were stacked against us again and this time we didn't have the strength of that strange world behind us.  
"Everything will be shrouded in darkness." The vampire declared. "It's all turning into the color that suits me best."  
"Like we'll let you!" I defiantly shouted back.  
"Positron Laser!" Imperialdramon charged his cannon once more. However, as it flew towards BelialVamdemon, one of those shoulder mouths he called Sodom and Gomorrah opened up and unleashed a black wave of that collided with the laser and exploded in a blinding light that blew us all away.

"He got them." I heard one of Oikawa's boys sadly say from back in the opening to that strange realm.  
"What will happen to us?" Another boy asked as I groaned out in some pain and tried to get back up.  
"So we were just being used? It could have been anyone?" One of the girls sounded depressed upon that realization.  
"Chosen Children, observe…" The vampire roared. "As your world falls into my hands!"  
"We won't let you do what you want with our world!" Osamu cried as we all got back up on our feet.  
"There's no way they can beat him." One of those kids moaned once again.  
"I want to go home…" A girl was on the verge of crying.  
"I don't want to." One of the other boys gave out a defeated tone as he sat down. "There's no place for me at home, after all."  
"You're right." That first boy agreed with him. "Might as well stay here, then."  
"Stop talking nonsense!" Ken shouted back at them to try and talk them out of their dark thoughts.

"Why is it nonsense?" One of the boys claimed; none of the kids were even looking at us now. "It's obvious if you look at the situation, isn't it?"  
"Yeah. It's impossible, so why do you keep trying?" The younger boy next to him said. "It's useless. You'll be defeated anyway."  
"It's not impossible!" I tried to argue and get it through their heads. It seems like they at least heard that. "Don't say it's impossible just like that! If we try hard enough, we'll be able to do something!"  
"Do something?" A girl questioned, but her tone was similar to the others.  
"If we all work together, there's nothing we can't do!"  
"But what can we do?" One of the boys continued that defeatist talk.  
"It makes no sense." The boy next to him sighed.  
"Such futile efforts…" BelialVamdemon taunted before laughing once more.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

"This place is covered in darkness too." Yamato looked around as we reached the old cabin we all stayed in that fateful day at camp.  
"But to go to the Digital World…" I said. "I can't think of any other place."  
"But will the gate really open here?" Jou expressed some doubt.  
"It has to, Jou. We've got to get back to help the others." Ross told him.  
"The gate at Tokyo was sealed by BlackWarGreymon." explained Koushiro. My mind flashed back to yesterday when he performed his noble sacrifice high above Tokyo… but now with everything that has happened the past few hours, it feels more like a detriment to us. "This is the closest possible place." He continued.  
"Right, it's the first place that took us to the Digital World." Sora nodded.  
"This is where it happened? Hard to believe." Takeo muttered.

"It almost feel so long ago… but we need to get there…" Mimi turned to look at Noriko who was with her parents and who's health was actually getting worse lately. Clearly the Dark Flower really messed something up with her. "We have to take her to Oikawa somehow…"  
"Yeah." I agreed.  
"Noriko… what will happen to her?" Her father asked us as her parents were so concerned with her health.  
"She will be fine." Jou tried to assure them, though I'm pretty sure we weren't entirely sure.  
"But…"  
"They'll find a solution." Jou's brother, Shin, told them.  
"Still…" Sora turned her head back around towards the sky. "How do we open the gate?"

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

BelialVamdemon just kept holding his arms up to the sky as he continued to spread darkness across Earth.  
"It's darkening, it's darkening!" He repeated as he kept going. "The time has come for my wish to come true at last!"  
"Positron Laser!" Imperialdramon opened fire once more. "Top Gun!" "Harmonious Spirit!" The two other Jogress Digimon also joined in while Strikedramon held back again; cursing that Guilmon wasn't here. Once again, those mouth shoulders opened up and created a dark shield that protected it's caster from any of our attacks. The attacks then were reflected and blew away our Digimon once more. BelialVamdemon chuckled once again as he claimed victory again.  
"It's impossible after all." Those kids were going at it again. "No matter how hard they try, it's impossible."  
"There's nothing we can do." One of the other boys added.  
"We weren't chosen anyway. We're not Chosen Children." moaned one of the girls in the group. They just keep up that attitude and we will never win!

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

"Taichi, we can't go to the Digital World?" Agumon began to worry as we were just standing by the steps to the cabin in the cold snow.  
"No, we'll go for sure." I insisted.  
"How?" Guilmon questioned.  
"We're still trying to think that part through so give us a moment, buddy…" Ross looked to his partner. I then decided that holding out our Digivices was what opened the gate for us back in Odaiba as we needed to return to the Digital World to fight the Dark Masters; so the same must work now! I held up my D-3 towards the sky.  
"Gate, please! Open!" I was nearly begging. I just kept holding it up but got no response.

"It's no use… nothing's happening." Sora sighed.  
"So our D-3s won't work out here either…" admitted Yamato.  
"Surely there must be something! Come on, we're smart enough to think of something, right?" Mimi tried to encourage us and not give up just yet. Meanwhile, Koushiro's old MacBook was making some noises that sounded really weird comin from it.  
"This is…!" He exclaimed as something had obviously happened on his screen.  
"What is it?" Jou asked him as Koushiro's focus remained on his laptop.  
"A reaction from gates all over the world…" Oh, don't tell me they're all opening again, another Digimon incursion is the last thing we need now. Although, from the tone of it, maybe it's actually not bad news that he's giving us.

 _P.O.V. – Daisuke Motomiya_

We looked up into the sky where Earth was and soon saw a glowing light shining from it as it soon began to spread. First there was one light, then another, then yet another one, until multiple lights were piercing the darkness that BelialVamdemon was creating. We all then gasped as we could see on top of the canyon walls a large horde of Digimon.  
"They're Digimon…" Iori muttered.  
"There's so many of them!" Miyako said as we all looked around to see that we were practically surrounded by them.  
"The light of your Digivices guided us here." Gabumon stepped forward, which indicated that all these Digimon were actually the partner Digimon for all the kids around the world.  
"The Digimon partners of the Chosen Children around the world have gathered!" Gomamon informed which confirmed with that thought I had a moment ago.  
"What do you want to do with our world?" Piyomon demanded an answer from the undead Ultimate, as if she didn't know.  
"Yeah! We won't let you do as you please!" Tentomon chimed in, meaning that Piyomon's demanded was more rhetorical.

BelialVamdemon did nothing but just continued to press on with his dark plot before he simply just scoffed.  
"Digimon partners around the world? What a joke. No matter how many of you gather, you're no match for me!" He unleashed that dark wave of his again as he tried to deal with the massed army of Digimon that came to oppose him. All of them held their ground as best as possible but were pushed back slightly, but not enough to send them away.  
"Is this all you've got?" Palmon questioned. "We're not losing to you!"  
"Tortamon!" We heard the sound of some child screaming out the name of their Digimon partner before a vast chorus could be heard. "Kentarumon!" "Yukidarumon!" "FlareLizamon!" "Shakomon!" "Hanumon!" "Meramon!" "Ganimon!" "Floramon!" "PetitMamon!" "Bearmon!" "Unimon!" "Snimon!" "Kuwagamon!" "Gotsumon!" Waves upon waves of light shot out from Earth right towards all the Digimon and caused all of them to glow in a bright white light.  
"So bright... What is this light!?" BelialVamdemon finally dropped his arms as he tried to shield himself from the light that was clearly blinding him.  
"The darkness… is disappearing." observed Takeru.  
"With the Digimon's power of light…" Osamu added. BelialVamdemon groaned once again in pain from the light.

 _P.O.V. – Taichi Yagami_

After a few moments of waiting, we watched as the sky lit up before rainbow aroura started to shine and that familiar green vortex that shot out our Digivices three and a half years ago appeared! The gate actually opened!  
"Those lights…" I muttered in awe.  
"It's like three years ago." Koushiro said.  
"The gate is open!" Agumon exclaimed.  
"Everyone is calling for us!" insisted Guilmon.  
"Noriko-chan!" Jou waved her over to us. Noriko slowly walked over before Sora put an arm around her shoulder.  
"Don't worry." She said, in a very motherly tone. That's Sora; so lucky I'm dating such an amazing girl.  
"Let's go!" Agumon ordered. We all held up our D-3s to the vortex before that wave appeared again and sent us all back to the Digital World.

 _P.O.V. – Third Person_

The light died down in front of all the families of the Chosen Children and the victims of BelialVamdemon's plot and many of the were bewildered by the sudden disappearance of the children in front of them.  
"Noriko? Where's Noriko?" Noriko's father questioned as he ran forward bit.  
"Don't worry. Let's leave it to them." Hiroaki walked over to him.  
"But…"  
"All we can do now is believe in them." Natsuko assured Noriko's family as well as the others.  
"Believe in Daisuke and the rest…" Hinata nodded.  
"They will come back. Just like they did three years ago." believed Yuuko.  
"Three years ago?" Momoe asked.  
"Yes, and they will this time as well." Masami added.  
"They can do things we'd never be able to." reminded Haruhiko.  
"Good luck, Sora." Toshiko held her husband's hand.  
"Come on, guys… you can easily deal with whatever creep comes your way." Takeo tightened his fists as he voiced his support.  
"Everyone. Whichever deity or God you answer to, you probably want to start praying right now… it works." Phil advised.

 _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

Once we returned to the Digital World, we practically fell out of the sky with apparently all the other Chosen Children around the world. The light that was shining around the canyon was brighter than any star. And at the center of it was a Digimon that I think we could honestly guess who it was. Looks like Vamdemon doesn't know when to fully die. We flew down towards the ground with our Digivices while all our Digimon called out our names. We soon landed next to Daisuke and his group while all the other Chosen Children landed next to their Digimon.  
"We made it!" Mimi cheered as we touched down and our partners came down to join us. Ken and Osamu quickly filled us in about how Vamdemon was using Oikawa as a flesh puppet and that the Dark Flowers were just the batteries he need to get a recharge and resurrection into BelialVamdemon.

"All these kids…" Yamato observed.  
"All the gates around the world opened at the same time." Koushiro explained.  
"Every Chosen Child and their Digimon partners!" Jou cried.  
"All our hopes and wishes helped answer the Digital World's call!" I assumed.  
"The bond between children and Digimon have opened the gates!" added Taichi. All the light was clearly harming BelialVamdemon. He growled and turned his head right towards us. It actually made Sora give a small gasp.  
"So it's true…" Noriko muttered. "The Chosen Children are special. You're not like us."  
"What are you talking about?" Sora questioned her.

"We don't have Digimon partners or anything." One of those kidnapped girls, Keiko Kurata told us as they were all still back in that strange world the others ended up in.  
"We don't have the power to fight and we can't remove the Dark Seeds." One of the boys, Hiroshi Shibata, looked defeated. Though, if what was told by Ken and Osamu is correct, they might not even have the seeds since they were already harvested. "Nothing will change."  
"We'll continue living our pitiful lives forever." declared Takashi Youshizawa before this dark smoke like substance started to float away from them… and right towards BelialVamdemon. He laughed as he got back up.  
"That's it! Feel more anguish!"  
"The power of darkness…!" exclaimed Osamu.  
"Their dark feelings are just energizing him!" Ken shouted.

"So what if you don't have Digimon partners?" Daisuke ran over to the kids. "What's the big deal about being a Chosen? There's nothing special at all about me!"  
"That's not true. You have the Digimon…" Takashi sighed.  
"If you want the Digimon to be able to stop BelialVamdemon and save the worlds, if you believe in that, they will." Takeru took a step forward next to Daisuke. "It's just like our feelings… Just like every child having the power to make their dreams come true."  
"That's just childish." scoffed Keiko.  
"You all have dreams for the future, don't you?" Daisuke tried to get through to them.  
"Dreams for the future?" Noriko questioned.  
"I've forgotten that stuff." Takashi said.  
"No way! You must have one!" Daisuke cried.  
"It's nothing to be ashamed of." Takeru added.

"Then, what's your dream?" Takashi asked Daisuke.  
"Mine?" Daisuke soon had a big smile on his face. "Mine's a ramen shop."  
"Eh!?" That clearly caught Miyako off guard. The rest of us too, but she had the biggest reaction as she flailed into a statue pose.  
"I love ramen! I'll become the world's best ramen maker!"  
"I had no idea…" admitted Ken.  
"Well… actually, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher." Noriko finally said with a smile on her face. It's working!  
"Me too." Hikari walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Meanwhile, BelialVamdemon suddenly grunted out in pain as we just discovered these good feelings and dreams were crippling his power!  
"He's weakening! Come on, keep going kids!" Yamato called out to them.  
"What about you guys?" Daisuke turned his attention back to the others.  
"A baseball player!" Takashi answered.  
"I really want to be a pastry chef…" Keiko blushed.  
"When I said I wanted to be a manga artist, everyone laughed, so I gave up…" admitted Hiroshi as BelialVamdemon continued to groan out in pain.

"We all had aspirations, and at some point we thought that wasn't allowed… but we were wrong, right?" Takashi asked.  
"Let people say whatever they want!" Daisuke advised.  
"You're right, we should be free to dream." Noriko nodded.  
"Not just dreaming. If you work hard, your dreams will surely come true!" Miyako threw up a fist.  
"Do we have the power to make our dreams come true?" wondered Takashi.  
"Of course you do!" Daisuke shouted.  
"Really?" Keiko blushed once again.  
"Really!" All us Chosen Children near them said.  
"Really, really?" The kids all questioned.  
"Really, really!" Every single Chosen Child and their partner Digimon roared.  
"I feel happy somehow…" Noriko kept smiling.  
"Somehow, I feel like I can do it!" Hiroshi ran forward.  
"Of course you can!" Takeru assured him. The other kids followed after Hiroshi.  
"Yeah, I'll make my dreams come true!" declared Takashi.

At the same time, BelialVamdemon was grunting out in more pain but he wasn't done yet.  
"No! No! No! I will not be defeated again! Not this time! I am still powerful than all you pathetic Chosen Children! THIS IS MY WORLD NOW!" He screamed.  
"Could someone please shut his damn mouth up!?" I yelled.  
"Right! Let's finish him off now! Everybody!" Taichi ordered.

"Agumon, warp-evolve! WARGREYMON!"  
"Gabumon, warp-evolve! METALGARURUMON!"  
"Guilmon, evolve! GROWMON!"  
"Growmon!" "Strikedramon!" "Jogress Evolve! MECHARAPTORMON!"  
"Piyomon, evolve! BIRDRAMON! Birdramon, super-evolve! GARUDAMON!"  
"Tentomon, evolve! KABUTERIMON! Kabuterimon, super-evolve! ATLURKABUTERIMON!"  
"Palmon, evolve! TOGEMON! Togemon, super-evolve! LILIMON!"  
"Gomamon, evolve! IKKAKUMON! Ikkakumon, super-evolve! ZUDOMON!"  
"WarGreymon!" "MetalGarurumon!" "Jogress Evolve! OMEGAMON!"

"Now then… ATTACK!" Taichi cried out.  
"Shadow Wing!" Garudamon and the Digimon near her all attacked and took out BelialVamdemon's right arm.  
"Horn Buster!" AtlurKabuterimon's force got the left arm.  
"Flower Cannon!" Lilimon and the Digimon with her dealt with blowing apart BelialVamdemon's left leg, though he was still standing as if he still had all his limbs.  
"Hammer Spark!" Zudomon's group took care of the right leg.  
"Top Gun!" Silphymon blew off his deadly tail.  
"Harmonious Spirit!" Shakkoumon removed the right shoulder.  
"Howitzer Blast!" MechaRaptormon got the left shoulder.

"Garuru Cannon!" Omegamon fired and blew apart everything below the vampire's waist.  
"No! Stop!" He tried to be as Omegamon unleashed his sword and charged ahead.  
"Omega Sword!" He swung around and decapitated BelialVamdemon's head before what was left of him disintegrated into black, evil smoke.  
"Impossible! How could I… How could I be defeated by some insignificant kids' light!?" His voice echoed as the smoke flew up and tried to escape.  
"Imperialdramon, care to do the honors?" Omegamon asked.  
"With pleasure. Everyone, lend me your power! Let's eradicate that darkness from this world once and for all!" He requested to all the Chosen Children. We all held up our D-3s towards him and the light shined towards him. His arm cannon vanished and a much larger one appeared that required him to hold it with both hands. He cocked it back, ready to fire. "GIGA DEATH!" The titanic blast shot upward and struck Vamdemon's spirit, causing him to give out a blood curdling scream as it was engulfed in the massive explosion. After it cleared, there was nothing left.

After almost a long year, we finally did it… Good luck trying to come back from that one, you bastard.

"We did it…" Daisuke gave out a sigh of relief.  
"We defeated him!" Ken cheered.  
"We did it!" "Alright!" "That's it!" "Good job!" Iori, Jou, Koushiro and Takeru joined in.  
"Yeah!" "Yahoo!" "We did it!" "Hooray!" The girls all chimed in.  
"Take that." "Thank goodness…" "Nice shot." "Way to go!" Taichi, myself, Osamu and Yamato all gave our praise too. The Digimon all devolved back to their basic forms before we had a guest show up in the form of Gennai.

He walked over to where Tailmon was and kneeled down near her.  
"Gennai-san…" She looked up at him.  
"I've come to return this." He was holding something in the palm of his hand. He handed what he was holding to her which revealed to be her Holy Ring.  
"My Holy Ring?"  
"The Holy Ring was used to control the power of darkness in the Digimon Kaiser's fortress. It was left behind, and I used it for the Jogress Evolution." Hikari helped slip it back on to Tailmon's tail as the other Chosen Children started to gather towards us. "And Jogress isn't needed anymore. Thank you, everyone."  
"The other world we were in… what is that?" Takeru asked him.  
"A world that materializes people's emotions. Rather, it's the power to materialize emotions itself. In fact, the Digital World is also founded on that power."

"So it's a world that integrates people's emotions and digital data." Miyako theorized.  
"I see, so that ocean…" Osamu remembered back the Dark World. "It could be the materialization of the dark emotions in people's hearts."  
"What about the Dark Seeds? Shouldn't they be removed?"  
"I don't think we need to worry anymore. Vamdemon already harvested them so there shouldn't be any trace of them left in them. And even if they were, as long as they believe in the power to realize their dreams, the Seeds won't sprout." Ken assure her.  
"Right."

"Someone help me!" We heard Iori's voice cry out. All our attention turned towards that strange realm where we could see Armadimon looking at Iori… who was actually trying to carry Oikawa. "Come on, Oikawa-san… we're almost there. We can still go to the Digital World together… Someone!" Iori… he was still trying to help him. Jou was very quick to move and ran over to the two of them. Judging from the look, Oikawa looked a bit more healthy, at least not as pale and gaunt as he was before when being used as a vessel for Vamdemon's dark spirit.  
"Here, let me help, Iori-kun." Jou helped pick him up.  
"Thanks… yes… let's go…" Oikawa muttered as the two of them soon picked him up and helped carry him a good fifty meters away from that place before they had to put him down for a moment.

Oikawa's breathing was quite labored which honestly meant that he probably didn't have much time. Being possessed by such a dark Digimon for so long can't be good for the health of the host.  
"I… wasn't able to believe I had the power to dream…" He said as he looked up into the sky. "Everyone stumbles at one time or another… But… I wasn't able to overcome it." Iori sat next to him. Jou was checking him out medically and while he was still in the very basics of medicine, he didn't need a doctorate to know that Oikawa was going to die very soon. Gennai then soon walked over to them.  
"After BelialVamdemon left his body, he has very little strength remaining. I think… he doesn't have much time."  
"No…" Iori looked devastated. I think he felt so devastated about it was because he was to lose yet another connection to his father, in this case, his father's closest friend.  
"The Digital World… this is the Digital World…?" He then coughed for a second. "Hiroki… I made it finally… for the both of us… I'm so sorry…" He started to tear up. "It's seen better days." He admitted. Looking around, yeah, it has.

"It used a lot of energy in order to defeat BelialVamdemon." Gennai informed. "It will recover… but it will take time."  
"Well, with BelialVamdemon gone now and Demon trapped in the Dark World, it should at least have little threats to it that will stop its recovery." Koushiro believed.  
"Iori… Iori…" Oikawa called for him.  
"Yes, Oikawa-san...?"  
"I can't move… but thank you for… for bringing me to the Digital World." Iori was starting to tear up and on the verge of crying. "You truly are like your father… I know you'll grow up into a fine young man he would be proud of." The dam burst and Iori just broke down and cried. "If I also had the power to make my dreams come true, maybe I would have been able to go on adventures like you all. But in the end… I made it least for both Hiroki and I… Iori… tell… tell your mother and grandfather… that Yukio Oikawa sends his regrets… and that he's sorry…"  
"I will! I will!" Iori sobbed.  
"Thank you… Iori…" He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as he drew his final breath.

"I… I want to bury him here… he would've wanted that…" Iori tried to wipe away the tears as he got up. We all nodded and helped him with that. All the other Chosen Children were talking amongst each other and getting to meet each other as they celebrated our victory, but for us from Japan, we were busy doing a funeral for Oikawa. We dug the hole and gently placed him in the ground before we filled it and Iori made a little memorial for him. None of us knew the true Oikawa, the one that was friends with Iori's father, but the words that Iori said probably rang true. "Oikawa-san, you were a good man that sadly lost his way, but I know in the end that you made peace with yourself… and I know my father made peace with you too. Look out for each other wherever you are now." Iori said as we all stayed silent. Our heads were bowed as we paid our respects.

After a few moments, Iori finished and we all left to join the other children and join in the celebration. In all honesty, the party felt very much like the one at the ending of **_Return of the Jedi_**. It was a good fun few hours as we caught up with some other Chosen we met and those we didn't during our Christmas adventure last week. It was great to see Michael and Wallace again as well as Anna, Laura and Yuri from Eastern Europe. It was true fun we shared with all the children as we recounted adventures and past memories. Our celebration would go on until just an hour or two before the new year would ring in.

And we could finally truly rest as we had finally won…

* * *

So yeah, things went a bit different here.

Most of my things go with the fact that .tri exists. If I had written this about... 2008-ish when I original tried to start (Better that I waited a decade, I know that would've been trash.) then most of the episode would've gone as normal.

Example, Noriko and the other kidnapped children were never mentioned in .tri so as cruel as it is, I decided not to give them Digimon, nor the rest of the world as apparently was the original ending. There was actually an audio drama where apparently Jun had a partner.

The other was Oikawa's wish and restoring the Digital World... which would've been fine but the events of .tri made it feel more like it wasn't worth anything so I thought pulling a General Armistead death fit more. Seriously, watch that scene from _**Gettysburg**_ and tell me you don't cry. Especially since his actor Richard Jordan was dying of brain cancer and knew it too.

Anyways, that's all about I can say for now... true closing statements will come with the Epilogue, see you all tomorrow.

 ** _"Push the button, Frank."_**


	57. Epilogue

And here we are. The end of yet another long journey, but that doesn't mean this story is done just yet. Though with the recent information today, that Digimon movie next year might close out Adventure; which I hope ends on a good note.

Shoutout to **Starlit Storyteller** for all the faves and follows along my stories, even if it's at the end.

And shoutouts to **Super Saiyan 3 Odd** (Who I can't seem to find your review now. Weird, I did get the e-mail alert.), **God of the Challenge** , **DigimonAT0318** , **MadDogLucario96** , and **Whiteling**. (Hey, I still loved .tri so much, just would've done a thing or two different.)

Anyways, I can ramble more at the end of this. Let's finish this.

* * *

 **Epilogue**

 _Summer Camp, 50 Kilometers Northwest of Tokyo, Japan. December 31st, 2002. 2109 Hours.  
_ _P.O.V. – Ross McGlathery_

After our celebration of our victory over BelialVamdemon, and after we had our fun with many of the other Chosen Children around the world, we soon all returned back to Earth. All of us from Japan returned with the Dark Seed children; of course, returning from that gate at camp didn't keep us conscious.  
"Hey, Ross… wake up, buddy." I felt the cold snow on my back before I slowly opened my eyes to see Dad hovering over me. I gave him a smirk.  
"Oh, I thought Mimi was trying to wake me up; instead I have to wake up to your ugly mug." I told him which caused him to smirk as well.  
"Love ya too. Come on." He grabbed my hand and helped me up. "You too, Guilmon." Guilmon was face first into the snow.  
"Five more minutes…" He muttered causing us to both chuckle. I rolled him over onto his back to let him get his sleep. After everything, he certainly deserved it.

"So, what happened?" Dad asked. I gave him a quick rundown of what exactly happened, of course it was all second hand for a good chunk of it as it was told by the others first. At the same time, everyone else was reuniting with their families as well. "So, that bastard didn't know how to stay dead."  
"Yeah… but we got him this time, and I'm sure of it." I assured him.  
"Well, whatever it is… looks like you kids did it again."  
"We try. We certainly don't try to make it a habit or a job but we just do what we can… mostly because no one else can."  
"I honestly wish you didn't have to risk your life like this…" He put his hand on my shoulder. "But, I know you've got to do it and I know you make me proud."  
"Thanks, Dad." I smiled.  
"And I know your mother would be proud if she was here too." Shoot, Dad… why'd you have to say that? Now I'm about to tear up.

"WHAT!?" Our attention was quickly thrown off as we heard both Yamato and Takeru scream out. A quick look over saw their jaws practically dropped on the ground with news that I must have misheard.  
"What happened?" I questioned.  
"Well… my ears are slowly getting worse with age, but if I could swore that I just heard Hiroaki-kun saying he and Natsuko-kun were getting back together… and he was planning to move back in with her." Dad said.  
"Oh, you heard that too. I thought I was going insane for a second there." I then looked at Dad. "What did you do?"  
"You think I did something? Well… when you guys were dealing with the Kaiser, we just got talking about our past loves; him with Natsuko-kun and me with your mother. I just said a few words but I guess he took it to heart."  
"Weird as it sounds… Yamato and Takeru-kun might actually have to thank Osamu for going insane, then." The both of us chuckled as everyone started to get moving back to the cars. Hopefully we can make it back to the city before midnight and the fireworks show.

 _Odaiba District, Minato Ward, Tokyo, Japan. February 14th, 2003. 1741 Hours._

 _"_ _A chance to find the phoenix for the flame! A chance to die, but can we dance into the fire!? That fatal kiss is all we need! Dance into the fire! To fatal sounds of broken dreams! Dance into the fire! That fatal kiss is all we need! Dance into the fire! When all we see is the view to a kill!"_ I really do love Mimi sometimes, mostly because she tends to let me do some really embarrassing things and hell, even join in on them! Like this moment for instant; letting me sing karaoke at this restaurant where we were enjoying a Valentine's Day date. Actually, she started it as a few minutes before when she got up to sing _'Plastic Love'_ by Mariya Takeuchi before I sang Duran Duran's _'A View to a Kill'_. I stopped as the song ended and got a standing ovation.

It was actually something to kill time as we waited for our food which was just brought to our table. I got into the booth and slid right to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  
"You were great." She said as she wrapped her arms around me before kissing me back.  
"Oh, please, I was nothing up there compared to you." I smiled.  
"You never give yourself enough credit."  
"Sorry, just not used to being with one of the greatest woman in the world." I told her as I brushed my hand through her hair… and then stole one of her rice balls.  
"Hey! That's mine!" She got angry, though there was a smile on her face.  
"Actually, those are ours." Guilmon and Palmon's claws and vines went across the table to steal most of our meal.  
"Hey!" We both shouted at them as we tried to get some of our food back. The past month and a half has been pretty quiet, though we were once again interrogated by the PISA again. After that though, we all kinda melded into our lives as we didn't need to worry about threats from the Digital World… and of course we have an added bonus that we didn't get three years ago… our Digimon got to stay with us.

Everything with the others was all good too. Daisuke certainly matured to the point where I didn't hate his guts. Miyako cooled down and became less of a diva, although she still had her moments. Iori was now more open and forward and less of the shy boy I remembered meeting last year. Ken continued to be a kind kid although was much more confident in himself as he now had himself surrounded by friends; something he claimed he didn't really have before he met us, and was on great terms with his brother again. Finally, there was Osamu. The former Kaiser had truly moved on from his past and now was hopeful of the future. Plus, he was also planning to go out on a date with Jun next week; something all of us are still trying to figure out of how she pulled that off. Last year was truly a year to remember and although there was some ups and downs, we came out of it in good fashion…

 _Kitamachi District, Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, Japan. December 31st, 2016. 1136 Hours._

The car was now quiet as I was driving down the highway towards our destination. Ren decided to doze off as we were slowly working our way through town on our way north. I glanced over to him and smiled. How much I envy him some days. He'll probably never have to worry about going through all the stuff I had to when I was young. 2002 was a good year and I still hold most of those memories close to my heart.

Of course, that wasn't the end of our adventures with the Digimon and the Digital World.

There still was a few more stories to tell…

* * *

Welp… I have to say that's that for 02. Once again, it's been a journey that I'm glad all of you were willing to read and follow.

So, few things. One, considering I changed the whole thing about everyone getting Digimon afterwards; I had to give one of the gang something about their greatest desire. Since I couldn't bring someone back from the dead, change the past, or make Miyako an only child... I early on decided to give it to Takeru. Hey, I've heard plenty of stories of divorced couples getting back together. So there you go, buddy.

Also... yeah, Jun's gonna go out with Osamu. You read one fanfic and suddenly you can't help but ship them all the time. Curse you **Athena** and your fic _'You Know It's Love'_!

Now, finally... what does the future hold for me? Well, I hate to do this to all ya, but Digimon is going to go on hiatus for the time. I'm gonna do Diablomon's Counterattack in the next few days and then I'm braking from this series. It's not like I don't want to get to .tri, I really do... but there are some things there that I don't actually want to shoot myself in the foot with until that movie comes out so that's why there's a pause. Don't worry though... I'm gonna have to be dead for that to happen. If something happens, MadDog will alert you all as he'll probably be one of the first to know.

However, that doesn't mean I'm braking from writing. Actually, I'm gonna take up writing for another project that I've had my eye on for a while. Okay, just a heads up, but I am a brony. I do greatly enjoy Friendship is Magic; sad to see it ending, but hey, 9 seasons isn't bad. One of the admins on FIMFiction, **Wanderer D** (Who is a big fan of the Tamers/Clone Wars crossover and greatest fanfic of all time _'Secret of the 327th'_ ) had a fic he started in 2016 called _'Young Amazons'_ but only did 3 chapter before putting it on the backburner. (He's been working on a large XCOM 2 crossover right now.) The story is Sunset Shimmer ends up in the world of The Batman (The mid 2000s animated series that was on KidsWB). Actually, I was almost going to take it over back in February/March of last year, but then I finally watched the English Sub of Adventure and then knew I had to do my story first. So, that's the story there. I'm gonna take over with him giving ideas and proofreading and will publish his on his FIMFiction profile; meanwhile, I'll publish the chapters soon after here on Fanfiction so you don't need to go to FIMFiction if you don't want to.

Also, on the down time while I'm waiting for him to proof read, I might also do my Call of Duty 2: Big Red One novelization so keep eyes open for that one too, it's gonna be secondary, but won't be as long.

So, there's that... quite a lot of rambling I did but I thought you guys should just know. Thank you all so much for continuing along with this story and putting up with my delays and all sorts of other things. I hope to see some of you stay along with my writings and I certainly hope you'll all come back when I tackle .tri soon. Until then, God bless you all for support and I love all you guys. Take care.

 _ **"Push the button, Frank."  
"Uh... it's not working..."  
"Hold it down."  
"It's not working."  
"Aw, jeez... okay, give me a minute"  
(One hour later.)  
**_ _ **"Welp, that's it, Frank. We're licked."  
"Dr. Forrester, I've known you to be many things before, but I've never known you to be a quitter. Are you gonna give up now? Don't quit, live damn it, live!"  
"Oh, I remember now. Alt/Function-7."  
**_


End file.
